Wednesday 4 January 2017

An old fashioned spiral

Pic taken on 1 Jan 2017.  
GUESS this spiral staircase belongs to which building? But the colour may be a giveaway. This is the first time I see a spiral staircase with such long connections to each floor. Usually, the door of each unit opens immediately to the spiral staircase without such a longish extension.

The topmost one linking the rooftop to the staircase is the most exciting, I think. It is like a bridge! Imagine standing there on a breezy day and taking in the view of the surrounding area which incidentally, is changing rather rapidly.

Fellow blogger once told me that this may be the area where my "bird street" was -- where bird shops lined the canal and one could smell the bird food -- those little cakes which you stick between the bird cage railings, using toothpicks or broken bits of satay sticks.

Those were days in the 60s, when my dad would take me for a walk down this bird street. I can't really recall where, except that there was a canal running along the length of this street.

Hotel 81 Rochor. Picture taken at the junction of Rochor Road and Rochor Canal Road

8 comments:

streetsing said...

Oh yes, it's along Bencoolen street. It's an old building, now a Budget hotel. The Singapore judo club HQ used to be on the uppermost floor years ago.

Lo Tien Yin said...

Interesting to know that the Singapore Judo Club HQ used to be on the top floor!

streetsing said...

This area changed a lot, the right side of photo were the double storeys shop houses. The Green bus terminal was here at Queens street. The Rochor canal was not covered then, you probably walked along the canal with your dad to "Cheok Chai Kai" which was nearby :)

Lo Tien Yin said...

Yes, the canal wasn't covered. I remember the bus terminal too.

streetsing said...

I came across a blog “Remember Singapore” titled Bird singing, a favourite pastime in the past. The author mentioned there were plenty of bird shops at Rochor. That should confirm the location of “Cheok chai kai” :)

Lo Tien Yin said...

That's great. I will check out the post in Remember Singapore. Should be interesting! By the way, is your new blog up yet? :)

streetsing said...

My new blog? Er.. no not yet. The AC converter for my laptop went kaput. Have to go down to Sim Lim to get a replacement. Either that or contemplating to get a new Laptop. Hard to decide which brand though :)

Lo Tien Yin said...

Happy shopping😁