Sunday, November 12, 2017

Hillview Road in 1956



Found an old photograph showing the Hillview Road entry towards the "Princess Elizabeth Industrial Estate" taken in May 1956. Can you recognise this spot?

The S.I.T. blocks of flats at Princess Elizabeth Estate were built in 1953. At that time, this was the only road access to the housing estate and to the few factories that were set up at then, such as Kiwi Shoe Polish, Eveready Batteries (National Carbon), Malayan Guttas, Hong Kong Rope Manufacturing and Malayan Textiles.

The photo shows the junction of Hillview Road and Upper Bukit Timah Road at 9-1/2ms. The road on the right of the picture is Upper Bukit Timah heading towards Woodlands.

Besides the road signs "Princess Elizabeth Estate" and "Hillview Road", there are five other signboards visible. Due to the low resolution of the photo, I can only make out three of them - Raja Clinic, Kiwi Polish and Malayan Textile Mill Ltd. Can anyone decipher what the other signboards indicate?

The Chartered Bank branch would be built the following year at this junction. The Green Bus Company had started its No. 5 bus service along this road in February 1953 and there were bus stops on either side of Hillview Road just left of this junction (without shelter!)

Today, exactly on this junction sits the Hillview MRT Station of the Downtown Line.

Related posts:
The Hillview Railway Bridge