Karikal Mahal: New article in BiblioAsia

Check out my latest publication, a deep dive into the history of a micro-site, Karikal Mahal on Singapore’s east coast. The site’s history is fascinating and the good folks at BiblioAsia, the magazine of the National Library Board, did an amazing job…the article looks great!

Read the online version here: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-16/issue-3/oct-dec-2020/karikal

Or download the entire issue of the magazine here (Vol 16, Issue 3, Oct-Dec 2020): https://www.nlb.gov.sg/browse/biblioasia.aspx

Meanwhile, here’s some historical images, some of which were used in the article, many of which were not for reasons of copyright.

The original owner of the site, Moona Kadir Sultan, along with the French Consul Andre Danjou when MKS was his awarded the Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur at Karikal Mahal in 1925. Behind them is building 24. A similar image appeared in L’Illustration, Issue 4286, 25 April 1925, p. 414. The speaker is Shaik Dawood, a prominent physician. The round pavilion behind them surrounded a fishpond with a fountain, as can be seen in the later shots of the Grand Hotel.

Below are two views of the site after it became the Grand Hotel, c.1958, from an unidentified serviceman at RAF Changi. Building 26 (now Pat’s Schoolhouse) had a three-story tower that sadly is no more.

Advertisements for the hotel from The Straits Times in 1961. The first of building 26, the second of building 25.

In 1967, Lee Kip Yin took images of each of the buildings, not long before the road was widened and the site permanently altered.

The first is of building 24, which was demolished (this is the only photograph of the building I’ve been able to locate).

This is building 25 (now the Odyssey Preschool). The crest on the pediment was emblazoned with the initials MKS, for Moona Kadir Sultan. It was removed during recent renovations.

This is building 26, now Pat’s Schoolhouse. The tower visible in 1958 and 1961 appears to have been taken down by 1967.

Another shot by Lee Kip Yin, this time from 1970, of building 26 after the land reclamation works has begun. He was standing in what is now the center of Marine Parade and what previously would have been the surf line.

Number 26 today, from across Marine Parade.

Building 25 in 1981 (again by Lee Kip Yin).

And today…