Pagoda Street () is a

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...

located in

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

within the Outram Planning Area in Singapore. The road links New Bridge Road and South Bridge Road, but has since been converted to a pedestrian mall to Chinatown MRT station at its New Bridge Road end. The Chinatown Heritage Centre, located on Pagoda Street, provides an overview of the life of early Chinese settlers in Chinatown.

Etymology and history

Pagoda Street was named after the pagoda-like '' gopuram'' of Sri Mariamman Temple, the largest and oldest Hindu temple in Singapore, located on the South Bridge Road end of the street. Due to Sri Mariamman Temple, the street was called ''kit ling a le pai au'' in Hokkien, meaning "behind the ''kling''

place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is somet ...

" where ''Kling'' is an old reference to Indians. The street was known for its

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

smoking den and also as one of the coolie trade stations between the 1850s and the 1880s. One famous firm for the coolie trade located at the street was ''Kwong Hup Yuen'' and later known as ''Kian Seng Heng Bicycle Trader of 37 Pagoda Street''. This leads to the Cantonese to call this street as ''kwong hup yuan kai''. In the early 1900s, many

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 along the street became coolie lodging places due to the coolie trade. By the 1930s, the coolie trade in Singapore stopped and hence the many coolie lodging places went out of business. By the 1950s, the shophouses changed to retail trade and services and became well known for textile and tailor shops. The architecture of the shophouses on Pagoda Street and other parts of Chinatown originates from the Raffles Town Plan of 1822, which stipulated the material that should be used to build the shophouses as well as the need to have covered walkways of five-

foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...

width (hence known as "five-foot ways"). In the late 1980s, Chinatown was gazetted as a Historic District for conservation and the street was included.

References

*National Heritage Board (2006), ''Discover Singapore - Heritage Trails'', Chinatown, Singapore Odonyms referring to a building Odonyms referring to religion Coolie trade {{Singapore-road-stub