This is a very old photo taken by my father who used to love photography in his younger days. This place should be near Merdeka Bridge, Guillemard Road or the old un-named road now called Stadium Boulevard; not sure at all? Anyone knows?
Where in Singapore?
Published Tuesday, February 13, 2007 The 60s 16 CommentsTags: Places & Buildings
Times of My Life 
Somehow reminds me of the New York World’s Fair observatory towers.
No idea where these were located. Didn’t know they existed until I read your post!
It is located to the right of MacDonald at Kallang Stadium in the direction of the city. Now there is some MRT construction on the old runway.
Do you have old photos of similar genre? I am interested
Thanks Peter. So is it the now Stadium Boulevard which was un-named in the past or the Nicoll Highway (Merdeka Bridge)?
As for the old photos, may have to check with my father as he was the one who took them.
I think it is called the Stadium Road. Nicoll Highway refers to the junction of Mountbatten Road/Guillemard Road/Kallang Road to Suntec City. Merdeka Bridge refers to the bridge over the Kallang River (opened in 1957) but nowdays for reasons I don’t know why, the bridge is treated as if it was a part of Nicoll Highway. The spot where the cave-in took place during the MRT construction was exactly where the junk “ship-repairing” and “ship-building” industry was located in the 1950s.
Stadium Blbd or what ever it is now called came about in 1973 when the National Stadium was built.
Thanks Peter for your help.
The location is incorrect. Should be on that stretch of the straight road – as you turn right from Mountbatten Road (coming from Nicoll Highway direction) into the National Stadium – next to MacDonald Restaurant (or put it another way at the junction of Mountbatten Road and Stadium Blvd). TO be precise, it is somewhere along that straight road between the tennis court and MacDonald.
Thanks again Peter. I will make the change on the map.
This structure was erected in 1959 for the Constitution Exhibition held at the old Kallang Airport. It was at the seaward end of the airport and was the first major structure greeting visitors after the main gate and stood just in front of the City Council’s Pavilion. Yes, it is at what is now called Stadium Boulevard.
Kevin
The entry by Kevin Tan is correct. The structure was erected in front of the entrance to the Internation Exposition held around 1959. It was specially built for the purpose. I lived at 350 Beach Road (1947 to 1963) on the other side of the Medeka bridge and I was 12 at the time. My dad and I used to walked across the bridge on warm nights and look at this structure after the Exposition had long gone. There were two Lions ( one at each entrance to the Medeka bridge. The one on Kallang side looked towards the sea and the one on Beach Road side looked inland towards the Gas works.
Thanks Ricard for the confirmation of that location.
The structure was in the middle of the drive way to Kallang Park near the present MacDonald Restuarant. There was no National Stadium building at that time. I used to drive my children to the park to play. There was a large sand pit with swings and merry go-round and also colourful cylindrical tunnel blocks for children to play. I took movies of my children in 8mm film. Recently, I converted the films into DVD. When I saw your blog and the photo, I recognised it at once. I played the DVD to confirm it. I shall get a similar photo and email it to you.
Hi Philip,
Welcome here. Thank you for your photo that you’ve emailed me. I’ll put it up here in this post if you don’t mind.
hola
my new site
http://meinspanien.wordpress.com/
best wishes
It was during the Constitution Exhibition where I first heard Majulah Singapura played. If I’m not wrong, it was not our national anthem then. It was lively and catchy and was played over and over over the fairgounds and I loved it since then. Anyone else heard it then?
The location was the the entrance to the runway of Kallang Airport and the traffic junction between Old Kallang Road and Mountbatten Road By that time the runway had become just a road, an unusually wide one serving only the visitors to the Kallang Park 劳动公园 at the far end. My mother, a teacher, and her colleagues were rounded up by the Lim Yew Hock government as volunteers for the contruction of that park.
I must be around 5 years old then but I can still remember vividly that the fountain was really awesome. At that time most of Singapore was dimly lit. The spotlights shining on the pillars and the water flowing down from them made it a magnificent sight to behold.
A quick search of the Internet also yielded this: https://www.sohu.com/a/208900407_100012042 This article corroborates my recollection. One of the pictures shows the same fountain as viewed in the opposite direction with the HDB flats that still exist today in the background.