Turtle Point

Tanjong Katong marked the eastern boundary of the British settlement founded in 1819. Colonial planners first set it aside as a marine yard in the 1820s, but by the 1860s it had become the preferred spot for the wealthy to build seaside residences, alongside a Malay rural community that had settled there. 12

East Coast Road, built in 1902, connected and transformed rural Katong. 1 From 1900, as people moved east out of the crowded city centre, new residential neighbourhoods and their amenities grew up across Katong and Joo Chiat. 1

A hotel pool walled off from sharks

The Sea View Hotel opened in Tanjong Katong in 1906, originally a colonial seaside bungalow among coconut trees and one of the first hotels outside the town centre. It later installed a sea swimming pool with reinforced barriers to keep out sharks. After worker strikes in the 1960s, the original hotel closed in 1964. 3 Land reclamation in Marine Parade later moved the sea far from Katong’s old beachfront. 1

The communities behind the street names

Catholic churches and schools drew a significant Eurasian community to Katong. By the 1950s so many Eurasians lived on Haig Road that it became known as Kampong Serani, the “Eurasian village”; there were also Eurasian kampongs along Siglap Road. 14 Ceylon Road is named after the Ceylonese Tamil community that settled in the area in the 19th century, and today houses the Eurasian Heritage Gallery at 139 Ceylon Road, opened in 2019. 15 Marshall Road, meanwhile, was where hawkers plied their trade in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 1

Tanjong Katong itself, with its two-storey shophouses and old-style kopitiams, was designated a conserved area in 2003. 1

Sources

  1. History of Katong-Joo Chiat — Roots.gov.sg, National Heritage Board
  2. A Malay kampong in Tanjong Katong — Roots.gov.sg, National Museum of Singapore collection
  3. Landmarks of Katong-Joo Chiat — Roots.gov.sg, National Heritage Board
  4. Eurasian community — Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board
  5. Eurasian Heritage Gallery — Roots.gov.sg, National Heritage Board