Flying High

BEFORE there was the HDB, the first taste Singaporeans got of public housing was courtesy of the Singapore Improvement Trust, which built what's better known as SIT flats. Now the last vestiges of that era are immortalised in the form of the gentrified heritage neighbourhood of Tiong Bahru.

Started in 1927, SIT was set up by the British government to deal with housing and living conditons at the time. Many people were living in overcrowded shophouses or as squatters, without proper sanitation. In the process of cleaning up, the SIT found itself with displaced people who needed to be re-housed.

That was how it built Singapore's first public housing estate in Tiong Bahru in the 1930s, comprising 784 flats, 54 tenements, and 33 shops. In the photo above, you can see young boys living in the area in the 1950s, taking advantage of their rooftop access to fly kites.