Memories of Orchard Road in the 1970s and 1980s

The landscape of the Orchard Road of the late 1970s and 1980s has changed greatly. Sparkling upmarket malls have now replaced the shophouses and other older buildings. The crowded street scene filled with young trendy people in urbanwear today seems so different from the McDonald Kids* and Centrepoint Kids** of yesteryear. Gone are the orderly row of shophouses at Koek Road. Gone is the old dank Koek Road Market. Gone are the silent stone graveyards on the largely empty Teochew Cemetary at Ngee Ann City and Orchard MRT station.

I can still remember visiting Metro Grand, the most upscale of all department stores in those days in the then trendy and spanking new Lucky Plaza with my parents and the weekly visits to the old grey Cold Storage building for groceries before they built Centrepoint. I can remember many childhood haircuts at the perennially crowded Modern Youth barber which was housed in a row of shophouses behind Specialists Centre. That stretch of shophouses also housed the wondrous Orchard Store, a long-lived toy and modelling shop. I recall marvelling at the range of Airfix models on display at the display window.

I fondly remember the Magnolia Milkbar with its wooden panels and the Mont 'Dor cafe at Ngee Ann Building which was once the most luxurious of apartments in the city. And across the street was the outdoor Trivoli Cafe with its umbrellas beside the Fritzpatrick Supermarket and old C.K. Tangs. My mother would visit the Fritzpatrick Supermarket while I would be upstairs with my sister, browsing at books at an Indian newstand and bookstore (Newstand?). I recall my mother buying Tintin books for us.

The transience of that landscape striking. Singapore was growing at an extraordinary rate in those days and the future was blindingly bright. There was the domes of the Indonesian embassy and Orchard Police Station**** along the same stretch as the Ngee Ann Building. Not much from that period remain standing today.

I also remember the old Cairnhill Steakhouse*** and Emerald Hill Steakhouse off Orchard Road. Such memories! I also recall the Szechuan restuarant at the Singapura Hotel which was a favourite of my parents.

If only I had photos of those days. If I could chronicle the bustling street scenes of those days in photos or in pictorial form, I would.

How times change.

*McDonald Kids. These hang around McDonald's at Liat Towers.
**Centrepoint Kids. These only came later after the demolition of the old Cold Storage building and the construction of the new Centrepoint in 1982-83.
***Cairnhill Steakhouse shifted to Orchard Point for some years before disappearing altogether.
****Orchard Police Station. This was situated at the junction of Scotts Road and Orchard Road where the MRT station is now standing. A cemetary once stood there (where the Filipino picnickers are today).