A few months back, Jordan requested a tour of the Onan Road landed estate, but closer to the i12 side. (Thanks for following this series, by the way!) It took me a while to get round to it — apologies, but it’s hard to time the tours because of Singapore’s incessant rain — but that’s where we are off to today!
The stretch of Onan Road we’re visiting today is in between Dunman Road and Fowlie Road. It’s actually right next to Joo Chiat Road where you’ll find a plethora of commercial units so you’re never far from good food such as Mellvin Seafood Restaurant. (That’s also where you’ll find Joo Chiat Community Club and Duku Road which we visited a while back. To be honest, the 2 areas felt so different, I didn’t even realise they were next to each other till I looked at Google maps! (For more information about the shops and restaurants near Duku Road, click through to that tour — one thing about living in this part of East Coast is that there’s a real village feel and you’re usually within walking distance of cool places to hang out.))
Map for your reference. Although not clear in the map above, at the Dunman Road-Onan Road junction, you can find Dunman Food Centre (so literally at the doorstep of Onan Road properties — to be honest, it may be a bit too close for some people, such as myself.)
Before we reach Malvern Springs, there’s a little surprise along Onan Road: shophouses! Given that we’d only seen modern houses before this, I was pleasantly surprised to find them.
This brings us to the end of today’s walkabout. How did you find the area?
Before we go, some things to highlight:
- According to this NLB article, Onan Road was identified as a flood prone area in 1995. However, there are fewer floods as compared to the 70s. I did a quick Google search for “Onan Road flood Singapore” but no recent news came up. (Although with Google results these days…. Has anyone else found that the search results are becoming increasingly dodgy?)
These were the closest results I could find for flash floods in Onan Road.
According to the same article, the Onan-Joo Chiat area has a history of being a red light district, with complaints as recent as 2005-2009 about “scantily clad women”, massage parlours and bars in the area. Another Google search resulted a 2024 article about “public entertainment outlets” in Joo Chiat, going so far as to mention a ring fencing operation at “the corner at Onan Road.”
And, finally, here’s the history of sales transactions in the area for your reference.
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This article was first published in Stackedhomes.
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