Bukit Ho Swee
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Bukit Ho Swee () is a subzone within the planning area of Bukit Merah,
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, as defined by the
Urban Redevelopment Authority The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is the national urban planning authority of Singapore, and a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development of the Government of Singapore. Mission The authority was established on 1 Apri ...
(URA). Its boundary is made up of the Alexandra Canal in the north;
Kim Seng Road Kim Seng Road (Chinese: 金声路) is a street in Singapore that runs along the upper-easternmost portion of the Bukit Merah-Central Area, Singapore, Central Area border. It was named after Peranakan philanthropist, Tan Kim Seng. Today, the bound ...
and Outram Road in the east; Zion Road and Jalan Bukit Ho Swee in the south; Delta Road and Lower Delta Road in the west.


Etymology

Bukit Ho Swee means “Ho Swee Hill” in
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
. The name was derived from ''Bukit'' (Malay for hill) and ''Ho Swee'' from Tay Ho Swee (1834- 1903), an influential Chinese
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 ...
and
spirit Spirit or spirits may refer to: Liquor and other volatile liquids * Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks * Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol * Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...
farmer, timber merchant and ship owner.Victor R Savage, Brenda S A Yeoh (2003), ''Toponymics – A Study of Singapore Street Names'', Eastern Universities Press, He was also the son of
Tay Han Leong Tay may refer to: People and languages * Tay (name), including lists of people with the given name, surname and nickname * Tay people, an ethnic group of Vietnam ** Tày language *Atayal language, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan (ISO 639 ...
, the first opium and spirit dealer in Singapore. When Bukit Ho Swee got its official name in 1907, it was an area with many plank and
attap ''Nypa fruticans'', commonly known as the nipa palm (or simply nipa, from ms, nipah) or mangrove palm, is a species of palm native to the coastlines and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the only palm considered adapte ...
houses.


History

Bukit Ho Swee had a prominent Chinese community dating back to the days when Singapore was under British rule. Built over with wood frame huts with thatched roofs, it was an unplanned self-built township of about 20,000; although, like ''
favela Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...
s'' everywhere, no census was ever taken. Its rabbit warren of narrow lanes, passable only to pedestrians, made it an ideal base for gangs who could escape police pursuit which was too dangerous. A major fire, the
Bukit Ho Swee Fire The Bukit Ho Swee fire was a conflagration that broke out in the squatter settlement of Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore on 25 May 1961. This fire resulted in 4 deaths and injured another 54. It also destroyed more than 2,800 houses around the Bukit Ho ...
, broke out on 25 May 1961 and the wooden huts were completely destroyed. Unlike previous kampong fires, the inferno managed to spread across two roads, and destroying the homes of nearly 16,000 people. The scale of this fire far surmounted all previous fires. This includes the great fire of February 1959 at Kampong Tiong Bahru, which happened just across the main road from Bukit Ho Swee, a fire that rendered 5,000 people homeless. Thereafter, a second fire broke out seven years later that wiped out the remaining of Kampong Bukit Ho Swee. It swept across some 200 houses and caused 3,000 people to lose their homes. The recently constituted
Housing and Development Board The Housing & Development Board (HDB) (; ms, Lembaga Perumahan dan Pembangunan; ta, வீடமைப்பு வளர்ச்சிக் கழகம்) or often referred to as the Housing Board, is a statutory board under the M ...
(HDB) moved in quickly to construct low-cost housing in the form of apartment blocks. Since these were easily patrolled by the police, gang power and influence waned. As part of the HDB's plan to move locals out of squatters into "estates", a school was opened to serve the residents. Bukit Ho Swee Secondary School opened in 1967 and was located at Lower Delta Road. In 1991 it merged with the now defunct Tiong Bahru Secondary School (est. 1966), located several minutes' walk away. The site is now occupied by PSB Academy Delta campus.


Dwellings

Much of the housing in Bukit Ho Swee that existed at that time consisted of mainly one-room emergency flats and slightly bigger self- contained two room flats. A one-room rental emergency flat would cost roughly 20 dollars a month while a bigger two-room would cost only 4,000 dollar to buy. Citizens often squeezed their entire families in these tiny flats - studies have shown that at one time there could be up to 10 people living in the small space. Other bigger families would resort to splitting the family between two flats.Loh, Squatters into Citizens.


Present

Bukit Ho Swee is now a residential estate and little remains of its chaotic past.
Tiong Bahru MRT station Tiong Bahru MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the East West line in Bukit Merah, Singapore. This is the first and last underground station for eastbound and westbound trains respectively. Directly connected t ...
is the nearest
MRT MRT may refer to: Transport Rapid Transit Systems * Mass Rapid Transit (disambiguation) * MRT (Singapore) or Mass Rapid Transit, Singapore * MRT (Bangkok) or Metropolitan Rapid Transit, Thailand * Manila Metro Rail Transit System, Philippine ...
station. Nearby schools and educational institutions include Zhangde Primary School,
Gan Eng Seng School Gan Eng Seng School (GESS) is a co-educational government secondary school in Bukit Merah, Singapore. Founded in 1885 by philanthropist Gan Eng Seng, the school is the first school established by the overseas Chinese community in Singapore and i ...
,
Henderson Secondary School Henderson Secondary School ( Abbreviation: HSS; ) was a co-educational, single session, government school in Bukit Merah, Singapore and was established in 1974. It was located at 100 Henderson Road, Singapore 159544. It was closed and merged wit ...
,
Outram Secondary School Outram Secondary School is a co-educational government secondary school in Singapore. Founded in 1906 as Outram Road School, and later Outram School, it is one of the oldest schools in Singapore. It is also the only government school in Singapore ...
, PSB Academy and the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. The entire Bukit Ho Swee town, and its neighbouring areas such as Delta Avenue estate and Indus Road is currently managed by Jalan Besar Town Council.


References

{{Coord, 1.287, 103.828, display=title Bukit Merah Central Region, Singapore Squatting in Singapore