A SHORT WALK ON ARMENIAN STREET

No more cars on Armenian Street!

It was literally a walk down memory lane. Almost 15 years have passed since I set foot on Armenian Street in Singapore's historical civic district. I've been to the Armenian Church (on Hill Street) for several concerts recently, but never went further back to the Armenian Street proper, which has held many memories for me over the decades.

Now a pedestrianised precinct, it used to be a haunt for my younger self, being a regular at the old MPH bookstore at the corner with Stamford Road, the now-demolished red-bricked National Library Building (and its adjacent hawkers' food centre) and the now closed-down Substation, home to plays, concerts and art exhibitions. I remember the events vividly: a Fredi Sonderegger trombone recital, a lecture by Lukas Foss, a John Sharpley outdoor concert, Anton Chekhov short plays ...

The Peranakan Museum is still there, but that bistro (part of the Les Amis group) is long gone. Even Select Books, which moved here from Tanglin Shopping Centre, has ceased to exist. How the years have passed, but the memories remain.

Here are some photos which I took on Saturday (23 March 2024), for my own reminiscences, and to use a Tchaikovskyan phrase, Souvenirs d'un lieu cher, memories of a beloved place. 

A lovely mural on the row of shophouses
once occupied by sporting goods shops.

The Vanguard Building (now part of SMU)
was where the flagship store of MPH Bookstores
used to be. Readers of a certain age will 
remember the phrase Book Bang!

My favourite art deco building in all of SG.
There used to be a nice kopitiam with
an excellent mee pok stall.
The veteran piano teacher Lucien Wang
lived in the Loke Yew apartments upstairs. 

The Peranakan Museum of today,
formerly the Tao Nan School building.

A beloved sculpture.
I wonder where the kitten sculpture went.

An air-well in the Peranakan Museum.

Murals on the wall of the re-purposed Substation.

A new sculpture, part of SMU's Law School.