The New 7th Storey Hotel was a demolished

budget hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

once located on Rochor Road in the

Downtown Core The Downtown Core is the historical and downtown centre of the city-state of Singapore and the main commercial area in Singapore excluding reclaimed lands with many integrated resorts such as the Marina Bay Sands, one of the most expensive build ...

of Singapore.

History

The New 7th Storey Hotel was established in 1953. The founder of the hotel, Wee Thiam Siew, spotted the potential for a hotel business on its current site in the early 1950s. Wee also owned the Ban Leong Group. At that time, there was an influx of immigrants and European businessmen. The then five-

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

hotel did well and became prominent. It was the tallest standing structure in the Beach Road area, and offered panoramic views of the beach. It was commonly used as a landmark by drivers to locate the lower

Rochor Rochor is a Planning Areas of Singapore, planning area located within the Central Area, Singapore, Central Area of the Central Region, Singapore, Central Region of Singapore. Rochor shares boundaries with the following planning areas – Kallan ...

vicinity. With the advent of

land reclamation Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...

in the 1970s and 1980s, the

seascape A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. The word originated as a formation from landscape, which was first used of images of land in art. By a similar devel ...

s gave way to flyovers. Following urbanisation directives,

shophouse A shophouse is a building type serving both as a residence and a commercial business. It is defined in dictionary as a building type found in Southeast Asia that is "a shop opening on to the pavement and also used as the owner's residence", a ...

s, a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

temple and

pasar malam ''Pasar malam'' ( nl, Nacht Markt or Avondmarkt) is an Indonesian and Malay word that literally means "night market" (the word comes from ''bazaar'' in Persian). A ''pasar malam'' is a street market in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapor ...

markets in the hotel's immediate surroundings were also pulled down. In the 1990s, the development of the high-rise

skyscrapers A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

Marina Centre Marina Central or Marina Centre (Chinese: 滨海中心; ms, Marina Pusat) is a zone of reclaimed land within the Downtown Core in the southern part of Singapore. Together with the Marina South area, it encloses the sheltered Marina Bay. Suntec ...

such as the

Suntec City Suntec City is a major mixed-use development located in Marina Centre, a subzone of the Downtown Core in Singapore, which combines a shopping mall, office buildings, and a Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, convention centre. Con ...

obscured the sea view that the hotel once enjoyed. In the 1950s and 1960s, the building's top floor was the site of cha cha parties thrown by

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

British officers and graced by Singapore's veteran singer S. K. Poon. After Singapore's independence in 1965, most of the hotel's guests were traders from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. Since the

Asian economic crisis The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, ma ...

of 1997, fewer traders have been putting themselves up at the hotel's rooms. Most guests now are backpackers from Europe and North America. Wee and his family ran the business for about a decade before it went into other hands. In 1995 the Wee family took back ownership of the hotel and it was run by the third

generation A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and gr ...

of the Wee family until the end of 2008. The hotel continued to be popular due to its proximity to shopping belts like

Bugis Street Bugis (Kampong Bugis in Malay) is an area in Singapore that covers Bugis Street now located within the Bugis Junction shopping mall. Bugis Street was renowned internationally from the 1950s to the 1980s for its nightly gathering of transvesti ...

and

Orchard Road Orchard Road, often known colloquially as simply Orchard, is a major –long road in the Central Area of Singapore. Known as a famous tourist attraction, it is an upscale shopping area of Singapore, with numerous internationally renowned depa ...

, and historical landmarks such as the

national monuments National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

located in the nearby

Museum Planning Area The Museum Planning Area is a Planning Areas of Singapore, planning area located in the Central Area, Singapore, Central Area of the Central Region, Singapore, Central Region of Singapore. The area plays a "bridging role" between the Orchard Road ...

Facilities and features

Despite its name, The New 7th Storey Hotel was actually nine storeys high. It had 38 rooms catering to backpackers and the independent travellers. Facilities included a restaurant named 7th Storey Hainan Kitchen Charcoal Steamboat,

self-service laundry A self-service laundry, coin laundry, laundromat, or coin wash is a facility where clothes are washed and dried without much personalized professional help. They are known in the United Kingdom as launderettes or laundrettes, and in the Unit ...

services, Internet stations and a

beer garden A beer garden (German: ''Biergarten'') is an outdoor area in which beer and food are served, typically at shared tables shaded by trees. Beer gardens originated in Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital city, in the 19th century, and remain co ...

. The hotel's history was reflected through its architecture and furniture, many of which were relics still in use till demolition. Distinctive features included a manually operated

lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...

and its exterior

spiral staircase Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps which enable passage ...

Demolition

It was announced on 26 June 2008 that the hotel will be demolished to make way for the new

Bugis MRT station Bugis MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station on the East West line and Downtown line in Bugis, Singapore. Located under the junction of Rochor Road and Victoria Street, the station is close to Bugis Junctio ...

for the

Downtown Line zh, 滨海市区地铁线 ta, டவுன்டவுன் எம்ஆர்டி வழி , color = , logo = Downtown Line logo.svg , logo_width = 250px , image = DT17 Downtown Platform B 1.jpg , i ...

. The hotel's owner and occupants had to move out of the premises by the end of December 2008. The hotel was demolished in 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:New 7th Storey Hotel Demolished buildings and structures in Singapore Hotel buildings completed in 1953 Hotels in Singapore Downtown Core (Singapore) Inclined towers 1953 establishments in Singapore 2008 disestablishments in Singapore Buildings and structures demolished in 2009 Demolished hotels 20th-century architecture in Singapore