But can anyone tell us when they will open again please. The world misses this famous hostelry which has been closed for restoration since 1 March 2008 – almost 4 years!
But what a night the 29th February was – the last night. Were you there?
By the way, for more photos of this grand old building and its history I have just put up a new album on our Facebook page.
Photographs kindly supplied by Weng Ong Lee.
The Ipoh Echo recently reported that Ipoh’s Little India is to be spruced up. The work is to be completed before Merdeka Day on August 31. The area being spruced up under a project financed by the Federal Government covers from the entrance of Jalan Leong Boon Swee into Jalan Lahat and carrying on into Jalan Sultan Yussuf (Belfield Street) up till the intersection with Jalan Sultan Iskandar Shah. The idea to give a facelift was mooted when the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin visited the area last year and approved a RM1.5 million grant for the facelift. Plans for the facelift was drawn up by Ipoh City Council and presented to the residents in the area at a dialogue held last month to explain the changes about to be undertaken and to get their approval.
Among the changes to be made are replacing the interlocking bricks of the present pavements, laying interlocking pavers with motifs characteristic of Little India on the roads, installing decorative lamps and landscaping of the entire stretch. An arch will also be erected at the Dataran Little India (the small square in the centre of the area).
The existing memorial fountain (What memorial fountain?) will be demolished and in its place a stage will be constructed. A police pondok will also be located there to provide security.
Blocks of shop-houses within Little India will be painted with its original colours once all the rest of the sprucing up work has been completed.
Having read all of that I thought it would be usefdul to post the above picture of the square as it is today so that we may gain a comparison with the finished job.
And this is what the same place looked like in 1948.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all those terrible advertising signs be removed and the building allowed to show off their new paintwork as they originally did.
This Photograph of Station Road, Ipoh is a classic with so many rickshaws busy in the street. It is 1906 and this is the very centre of Perak’s commercial operations.
It was here that companies like Chung Thye Pin Built his status building which was first Dr Connolly’s Medical Hall, then Oldfield’s and subsequently Georgetown Dispensary,
The Straits Trading Company the very centre of the Tin trade were here as well, as were, The Chartered Bank (The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China), The Mercantile Bank, Whiteaway and Laidlaw, the leading department store in Ipoh, Charles Grenier & Co Ltd, who originally imported British Made ‘Centaur’ pedal cycles. They also ran a small press as ‘Printers Stationers and Publishers’ with its head office here, with branches in Kuala Lumpur and Seremban, The Station Hotel, (as the railway station at that time was a single storey wood and atap building with no accommodation facilities.)
This indeed was THE place to have your head office.