WALKING DOWN MEMORY LANE: NORTH BRIDGE ROAD

This is a digital snapshot of the North Bridge Centre at 420 North Bridge Road.

Mapwise, the building is bounded by North Bridge Road at the front; with Middle Road on its right & Purvis Street on its left, plus a narrow back alley behind the building.

This was the place where I had my larger office/store on the 3rd floor under 'Optimum Performance Technologies' / 'The Brain Resource' for ten years, from April 1994 to April 2005, after I had relocated from the now-demolished shophouse at 121 Beach Road.

Today, the National Library (opened in 2005) stands right in front of the building, just across the North Bridge Road. Prior to that, the site was partially occupied by a public car park.

Diagonally across on the right is the Hotel Intercontinental as well as Bugis Junction shopping mall (opened in 1995), sitting on top of the Bugis MRT Station. Likewise, on the left is the old Bras Basah Complex, popularly known to most students as 'Book City'.

According to Singapore Infopedia of the National Library, North Bridge Road is one of the earliest & oldest roads in Singapore.

As a matter of fact, historical records revealed that North Bridge Road, Hill Street & High Street were the first three streets carved out of the jungle during the 1820's with the help of convict labourers, under Lt. Henry Ralfe, Royal Navy Gunnery Officer on one of the escort vessels that accompanied Sir Stamford Raffles when he had first arrived on the island.

So, the road or track-path then, though not properly made up, was already in use long before 1833, when George Coleman, Superintendent of Public Works, headed the major construction of North Bridge & South Bridge Roads, again with the help of convict labourers.

During the early colonial era, it was a major road which for a long time was the only link road connecting the East Coast with the town, known in Hokkien as "Seoh Poh" (meaning "small town") in contrast to South Bridge Road, known as "Tua Poh" ("big town").

So, North Bridge Road was thus known in Hokkien as "Seoh Poh Tua Beh Lor" or "main road of the small town".

During the ten years when my office was located at the North Bridge Centre [my car was conveniently parked in the basement] my regular hangouts, together with Catherine, included:

- Bras Basah Complex, for office & stationery supplies, mostly from Popular;

- Bugis Junction, for food & entertainment as well as shopping;

- Raffles City Tower, for food & shopping [incidentally, one of my major corporate clients was located at this building];

- Raffles Hotel, for food [at the time, I often brought my workshop participants to the Seah's Deli & Empire Cafe for lunch];

- Shaw Tower, for food & entertainment;

- Suntec City Convention Centre, for book exhibitions [once a year, I had a small stand, but it was a great place to showcase my books & workshops; during earlier years, it was held at the now-defunct World Trade Centre, when an arrogant Punjabi guy was running the show;];


Looking back, I reckon one of the major reasons why I had chosen the North Bridge Centre for my relocation from Beach Road was the easy access - public car parks, public buses, MRT - for my existing/new customers as well as convenient locality for my logistics, e.g. printing, binding, eating places for my workshop participants, etc.

The other reason was the relatively attractive office/store rentals at that time. To be frank, the building at that time was a bit run-down, but I wasn't perturbed, as long as rentals were within my affordable limits.

In fact, because of the Asian financial crisis during the late nineties, rentals were reduced progressively - & substantially - by the landlord, Mr Kwee, with whom I had an amicable business relationship - actually, to my pleasant delight - up to the time I had closed down my office/store operations.

He was sad that I had to relinguish my office/store, as he told me that I had been a very good paymaster over the years.

Naturally, I was sad to leave the place, as I had also made many friends among the fellow tenants.