Telok Kurau Estate Blog

Monday, June 1, 2009

Origin of Telok Kurau

Telok Kurau Road connects Changi Road to Marine Parade Road. Named after a fishing village called Telok Kurau on East Coast Road, the road has been a popular middle-class residential district since the 1960s.

History
The word Telok Kurau means "mango fish bay" as telok is Malay for "bay" and Kurau is Malay for "mango fish". Before kampongs were phased out by the 1980s, a Malay village called Telok Kurau was located on East Coast Road. It is not known when and why this village was named Telok Kurau Road.

In the pre-war days, it was common to see the Indians in Telok Kurau, They reared cows, leading the animals about freely on public roads. The cows would be led from one house to another and milked whenever someone wanted to buy milk.

Telok Kurau Primary School, formerly called the Telok Kurau English School, was established in 1926. A two-storey wooden building set in the middle of a coconut plantation, it shared the same football field with the Telok Kurau Malay School which lay in the adjacent compound. During the Japanese Occupation, the Telok Kurau English School was used as a screening centre before Sook Ching or "purging" was done by the Japanese soldiers. The road also had its share of violence during the Maria Hertogh riots.

Description
Since the '60s, Telok Kurau has been a sleepy and tranquil suburbia in Katong, known mostly as a residential enclave of the middle-class. This suburb roughly covers Telok Kurau Road which is intersected by several smaller roads namely Lorongs J, K, L, M and N, Telok Kurau. The charm of this area is in a big way due to the presence of unimposing buildings; a mix of modest bungalows, terrace and semi-detached houses and low-rise apartments, existing with coffee shops and small businesses. This settled charm it has managed to retain despite the thronging urban development that had taken place in nearby Katong.

Since the '90s, new housing projects has altered the landscape of Telok Kurau although not drastically. The low-rise character of the buildings still dominate with tall condominiums being the exception. New semi-detached houses have sprung up, and together with freshly-painted terrace houses, they constitute a notable feature in the changing landscape of Telok Kurau. Another prominent building along this road is the Hua Yan Jin She Temple.

By Thulaja, Naidu Ratnala written on 2003-08-04
National Library Board Singapore

Friday, April 24, 2009

Is Telok Kurau going to the dogs?

(Strait Times Blog: 19 March 2009)

THAT'S the view of Murali Sharma whose letter was published in the Straits Times Forum page on March 16th.

In the letter, he expressed his alarm over the haphazard development of the area whose roads, in contrast, are laid out in a tidy grid of parallel lorongs (roads), from G to N.

One of his grouses is that the character of the landed estate has suffered a big hit after an assortment of five- to six-storey apartment projects and three-storey homes, some with outlandish designs, sprouted in place of the old-time bungalows and semi-detached homes.

One result is that congestion has taken root as more people moved in, with the narrow roads a challenge for drivers to navigate given the many cars parked at the kerbs.

I have lived in Telok Kurau for about 20 years now and have seen how the sleepy estate has morphed into a densely-packed enclave.

I personally do not feel that the new properties are a big eyesore even if the design of some of the houses seemed calculated to maximise space but not aesthetics.

But I do agree that there's certainly more traffic.

Where I live - Lorong J - traffic is bad because the road is also used by drivers to get to Marine Parade and Bedok from Joo Chiat.

You won't find too many people in Lorong J spending much time outside their houses - to talk to neighbours or check out their plants - because of safety and pollution issues.

But this does not mean that residents have to fume in silent frustration and feel totally helpless.

Some five years back, I did bombard my MP, Mr Chan Soo Sen, about the problem via countless e-mails.

In the end, he called for a townhall meeting in Telok Kurau Park where a crowd - at least 100-strong - turned up to air the traffic issue.

Mr Chan gave me the mic for me to suggest solutions - making Lorong J one-way was among them.

There were even representatives from the Land Transport Authority who said they could go along with what made sense for the residents.

There was a good, sometimes, heated debate.

Mr Chan called for a vote to decide if action was needed.

The feeling then was that there was no need for any drastic moves.

My feeling then was that a fair number of the people who voted for no action were not residents in Lorong J itself but in other roads leading off it, and hence, were not entirely affected by the traffic chaos.

Five years on, another resident, Sharma, has also decided that enough is enough and has vented his disgust.

The crux of the matter is that all Telok Kurau residents - both new and old - can effect change.

But we must be pragmatic. We cannot insist on going back to an idyllic past.

We cannot be insular, ban new property projects and deny others a chance to make Telok Kurau their home.

However, we certainly can rally together and engage our MP to tackle quality-of-life issues.

Sure, we can all wait for funds to come via the government's private-estate upgrading scheme to improve the estate's infrastructure and revamp the roads.

Or we could once again call for a townhall meeting and come up with answers that might not even cost a cent to implement.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

URA to conserve 100 more buildings

The structures, in Katong and Joo Chiat, include shophouses and churches
(Singapore)
THE Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday said it would conserve
another 100 buildings in Katong and Joo Chiat to retain the area's history
and character.
The buildings comprise 95 shophouses and terrace houses, two churches and
three bungalows. They will complement some 700 buildings in the Katong/Joo
Chiat area which have been gazetted for conservation since 1993 to keep the
social memories of the place.
These include shophouses located along Joo Chiat Road, Joo Chiat Place and
East Coast Road.
URA said the latest buildings were selected based on a set of comprehensive
criteria that included the architectural merits, cultural, social and
historical significance of the buildings, as well as their contribution to
the streetscape and identity of the place.
URA also considered feedback from building owners, members of the public and
the Conservation Advisory Panel. The panel, formed in June 2002, is an
independent body appointed by the Minister of National Development to give
inputs on built heritage proposals by URA as well as to propose buildings
for URA to study for possible conservation.
It includes professionals from the building industry, arts and heritage, as
well as education sectors and government representatives.
URA said in its press statement yesterday that more than 6,800 buildings
have been conserved since its conservation programme was launched in the
early 1980s. They include traditional shophouses, black-and-white bungalows,
civic buildings and modern developments such as the Asia Insurance Building
and Jurong Town Hall.