Really, they were the Good Old Days

Two nights ago, I was with some friends and we were enjoying a bit of a nostalgic yak about the good old days in George Town. Long before KOMTAR was conceived and built, this part of the city was a thriving entertainment and transportation hub from the 1960s to the 1970s. Maybe, even earlier.

Where the Prangin Mall is now located, there used to be an entertainment centre known as the Great World Park. Together with the New World Park in Swatow Lane, they were George Town's two main centres for entertainment. There were a number of amusement arcades, cabaret joints and gambling dens but obviously being too young to understand more about them, our recollection was rather poor.

But the legendary Rose Chan must have performed here often. There was mention of another rather notorious lady known as Abdullah 37, named after a brand of cigarettes, and she used to be transported around on a trishaw. She was an entertainer of another inclination.

We tried to recall the cinemas that used to exist at the Great World Park and its vicinity. There were quite a lot of cinemas in those days. The Capitol cinema, the Paramount cinema, the Royal cinema, the Central cinema and the Eastern cinema. Possibly another one called Ambassador. At the New World Park, there were the Lido and the Globe, the latter being a semi-open cinema.

Then, of course, there were the Cathay cinema and the Odeon cinema in Penang Road, the Rex cinema in Burmah Road, the Federal cinema and the Star cinema in Dato Kramat Road, the Gala cinema in Aboo Sittee Lane, the Majestic cinema in Phee Choon Road, the Sun cinema in Drury Lane off Campbell Street, the Metro cinema in Perak Road, the Wembly cinema in Noordin Street, the Kok Pin cinema and the Choong Nam cinema in Ayer Itam and the Movieland cinema in Leith Street.

There were also two Chinese schools near the Great World Park: the Li Tek School and the Confucius School. Both relocated elsewhere.

Maxwell Road, Gladstone Road and the Magazine Circus no longer exist. Gladstone Road had once cut right across the present-day KOMTAR complex from the Magazine Circus to Sia Boey. Maxwell Road ran parallel to Prangin Road, and the bus companies that had their termini here were the Lim Seng Seng Bus (green), Penang Yellow Bus (yellow) and Hin Bus (blue). They had very specific routes: the green buses went to Ayer Itam, the blue buses went along the north coastal road to Teluk Bahang, and the yellow buses took the southern route to Bayan Lepas, Balik Pulau and northwards to Teluk Bahang. By taking a combination of the blue and yellow buses, it was possible to go around the island. Someone also mentioned about the Sri Negara Bus. The George Town City Council itself ran its own bus services all over the island.

Ahh...those good old days!