Entering Verdun House

In April, a mixed-use building in the Jalan Besar area was sold en bloc.

Verdun House, a four-storey development made up of four shops and food and beverage outlets on the ground floor, and 12 apartments in the upper floors, was sold to Fragrance Group for $55.1 million.

This was the building’s third attempt at a collective sale since 2018.

Verdun House was completed in 1982, making it 40 years old this year - but it will not last much longer.

The building, at the corner of Verdun Road and Sam Leong Road, was named after the former.

Verdun Road itself was named in the late 1920s, as part of a municipal naming exercise to commemorate World War I, which had ended just a decade before. This is shared in my book, Jalan Singapura.

At the time, Singapore was a British possession, so it was par for the course for the authorities to name new roads after all things British.

Hence, after a cluster of new roads were laid down in the Jalan Besar area, from Lavender Street in the north to Syed Alwi Road in the south, they were named after prominent World War I battle sites in which British and French forces fought, or British and French generals and admirals who had served.

Generals and admirals included Allenby, Beatty, Foch, Fisher, French, Hamilton, Horne, Jellicoe, Kitchener, Maude, Petain, Plumer, Sturdee, and Townshend.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener (1850-1916), British Army.

Henri Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), French Army.

Battle sites included Flanders, Marne, Mons, Somme, and of course Verdun. Falkland and Jutland were naval battle sites.

French troops fighting at the Battle of Verdun, 1916.

The HMS Queen Mary blowing up during the Battle of Jutland, 1916.

After almost a hundred years, these roads have held up pretty well in the face of continuous urban renewal and redevelopment.

This is a map of the Jalan Besar area in 1932; the World War I commemorative roads are highlighted blue.

Base picture credit: Survey Department, Singapore.

This is the same area in 2022. The roads which have remained the same are highlighted blue; the roads which have changed in terms of name or alignment are highlighted red.

Base picture credit: Streetdirectory.com.

Here is a list of the roads and how they have changed since the 1920s:

• Allenby Road - remained the same.
  

• Beatty Road - lengthened to Race Course Road; parallel channels were merged into one; part of Jutland Road was renamed Beatty Road; the easternmost part of Beatty Road was renamed Beatty Lane.
  

• Foch Road - same.
  

• Fisher Road - renamed Tyrwhitt Road (after another Royal Navy admiral) in 1932; remained the same.
  

• French Road - partially realigned to accommodate flats.
  

• Hamilton Road - same.
  

• Horne Road - same.
  

• Jellicoe Road - realigned to accommodate developments such as flats, V Hotel Lavender, and Jalan Besar Community Club.
  

• Kitchener Road - the stretch southeast of King George’s Road was expunged for flats.
  

• Maude Road - the stretch southeast of King George’s Road was expunged for flats.
  

• Petain Road - same.
  

• Plumer Road - same.
  

• Sturdee Road - sliced in two and partially expunged to accommodate condominiums; the western part was renamed Sturdee Road North; part of the eastern half was realigned; part of Jutland Road was renamed Sturdee Road.
  

• Townshend Road - lengthened to Kelantan Lane.
  

• Flanders Square - there were two Flanders Squares; both were partially expunged for City Square Mall and City Square Residences; the eastern one was renamed Kitchener Link.
  

• Marne Road - most of it was expunged for City Square Mall.
  

• Mons Road - expunged. The place name has disappeared.
  

• Somme Road - much of it was expunged for City Square Residences.
  

• Verdun Road - the stretch north of Kitchener Road was renamed Kitchener Link.
  

• Falkland Road - expunged for Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre. The place name has disappeared.
  

• Jutland Road - renamed Beatty and Sturdee roads. The place name has disappeared.

This stretch of Sturdee Road and Beatty Road was once Jutland Road. Credit: Google Maps.

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Back to Verdun House.

I paid a visit to the building to take in the architecture of the 1980s.

There were several restaurants and a 24-hour minimart on the ground floor.

How did one access the upper-floor apartments? By going behind the building. There were driveways off Verdun Road and Sam Leong Road which allowed vehicles to drive in and out.

There were lots for apartment owners and tenants to park their vehicles.

The building was organised in an interesting fashion: There were two separate staircases leading up to the fourth floor. For the first staircase, there were two units on each floor; the first floor had Units 6 and 8, the second floor had 6A and 8A; the third floor had 6B and 8B; the top floor had 6C and 8C. For the second staircase, the first floor had Units 10 and 12; the second floor had 10A and 12A; the third floor had 10B and 12B; the top floor had 10C and 12C.

In all, Verdun House had four addresses: 6, 8, 10, and 12 Verdun Road.

Every lift landing and staircase had old-school wall and floor tiles.

Old-school lift buttons...

... and old-school lifts.

Units 6C and 8C at the top floor. The lift landings were small and claustrophobic.

Verdun Road - almost a hundred years old and named in honour of a bloody battlefield half a world away - will live on, but its flagship landmark will be replaced soon.

Bras Basah Complex’s Knowledge Book Centre

A mainstay of Bras Basah Complex for the past four decades is closing by mid-July.

Knowledge Book Centre, which has been operating at Bras Basah Complex since it was set up in 1981, is set to close down, hurt by rental expenses and declining business.

It will be moving out after the landlord finds a tenant to take over the 1,200 sq ft space - about the size of a five-room HDB flat - on the third floor.

“It has been a struggle to pay rent. One or two months of struggling to pay rent is okay, but how long can I push through? At my age, I also don’t want to be stressed,” said Mr Mohamed Ismail, 69, who runs the outlet and is a part-owner.

Knowledge Book Centre sells mainly second-hand books and is known for its educational materials from primary to tertiary levels.

The business was started by his uncle, Mr Mohamed Syed, now 85, in 1975 with two partners. The first location was in Bras Basah Road and under a different name.

Mr Ismail worked in his uncle’s business from 1981 to 1984 before he took on a job in Saudi Arabia.

At his uncle’s behest, he returned and started working at Knowledge Book Centre in December 1997. His uncle made him a partner in 2000 after one of the original partners died and the other wanted out.

Mr Syed, who retired in 2010, remains a partner and shows up at the store from time to time.

Although it initially sold new books, Knowledge Book Centre started buying and selling second-hand titles in 2000. Today, Mr Ismail estimates that 80 per cent of his business comes from used books.

In its heyday in the late 1990s, he said the store had 10 employees and was making around $40,000 a month.

These days, monthly sales have dropped to around $15,000 over the past seven to eight months, barely enough to cover the monthly rental of $7,500 after other expenses like utility bills.

The rent was previously $8,500 until the landlord decreased it last year because of the pandemic.

“If people come and business is okay, I won’t close the shop, but no one is coming,” Mr Ismail said, adding that footfall had been particularly low in recent months, although he is unsure of the reason…

The bookstore’s first appearance in the newspapers, on 19 November 1982. Credit: SPH Media Trust.

I visited the bookstore for the last time to record it for posterity.

It was everything I imagined a bookstore I would own - an organised chaos, with books spilling out of shelves and onto the floor.

There were also the dated fonts, metal grilles, worn-out linoleum flooring, fake ceiling boards, and old wall clock one would never find in newer, flashier bookstores.

Some shelf labels were for show only; the books did not match these labels, so I had to look at every shelf if I wanted to unearth a second-hand gem - which I did, several times.

The last day of the bookstore is 15 July.

The hexagons of Tanglin Halt Food Centre

We had lunch at Tanglin Halt Food Centre in Tanglin Halt Estate. I took the chance to take photos of the place, because it was closing for good on 31 July, and moving to nearby Margaret Drive Hawker Centre.

The food centre was shutting down as part of the general winding down of Tanglin Halt, as most of the estate awaits the wrecking ball under the Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (Sers).

Tanglin Halt Food Centre, also known as Commonwealth Drive Food Centre, is almost as old as Tanglin Halt itself, which was built in the 1960s. It is not to be confused with Tanglin Halt Market, which lies across Tanglin Halt Road.

Below is the 1978 street directory showing the market and the food centre in Tanglin Halt Estate.

What stands out for the food centre is its architecture - three hexagons joined like honeycomb cells of a beehive, hence the curious situation of the food centre possessing three addresses - Blocks 1A, 2A, and 3A. An allusion to Tanglin Halt residents being as hardworking as bees, perhaps? I jest.

The three hexagons of Tanglin Halt Food Centre. Tanglin Halt Market is to the left. Credit: Google Maps.

Depending on which stall you are at in the food centre, the address may vary.

After lunch, I walked around the food centre, taking in the architecture, the high ceiling, the shuttered stalls and empty tables and chairs, the background buzz common to community spaces, the laziness of a hot, dusty, early afternoon.

Some stalls, such as dessert and Hakka thunder tea rice, were still doing a brisk business.

The community plaza next to the food centre, just 12 years old and covered with a tasteful wooden deck, will go too. It was cordoned off pending demolition.

As for Tanglin Halt Market, it will be torn down in 2024.