Boston building

A recently surfaced picture from 1956 by one Brian Lord. This was the junction of Penang Road and Prangin Road with a well-known curved Boston building as the landmark feature. The view was still unhindered save for the overhead electrical lines to power the electric trams that roamed the town. This building still exists but sadly, the view is now completely obliterated by an unsightly pedestrian bridge. 

The ground floor was occupied by several retail shoplots selling fabric and shoes, and it included a photo studio. On the upper two floors were the Boston Café and the Boston Bar. The top floor must be the Café and it was an open-air café with chic blinds that were lowered to cut off the sunlight. Was the Bar on the middle floor air-conditioned? Most probably not but it is hard to say from the picture! Unfortunately they were out of bounds to youngsters like myself and I have no idea what sort of patrons these places attracted. There were two entrances into the building. At the far left was a staircase leading to the Café while at the other end was another staircase going up to the Bar. 

Of interest are the advertisements on the building itself. The most prominent was that of the Labour Soap which lit up the junction with neon lights in the evenings and featured an animated blacksmith hammering on an anvil. The Labour Soap was not a facial or body soap but used for laundry and washing pots and pans. When the anvil was struck, yellow sparks ⚡⚡ radiated out. Below it was a Tiger Beer advertisement with the immortal tagline, Time for a Tiger. 

Below the Boston Bar name could be seen the advertisements for films screened at the nearby Cathay and Odeon, both cinemas belonging to the Cathay Organisation. The former was proclaiming The Ten Commandments while the latter was showing The Last Paradise. It must have been towards the end of 1956 when this picture was taken because one of the shops was displaying an "Xmas Sale" banner. Behind the Labour Soap advertisement was another smaller shared signboard for both the Cathay and Odeon cinemas. There was also an Ovaltine advertisement on the side wall of a shop along Penang Road.

I've several more pictures to show of the same junction:

This second picture showed another view of the same busy junction. No idea who the photographer was but I suspect the year could be 1961 or 1962. In those days, films were incredibly notorious to reach this part of the world, maybe at least a year or two after its initial release in their home countries, unless they were really exceptional. So at about this time in the picture, Cathay was screening Holiday for Lovers (released in 1959) while at Odeon, it was the 1960 film, The Loves of Hercules. I also spotted an India Tyres hoarding board further down Penang Road. More pictures below.

These two black-and-white pictures should be about the same period as the above colour picture. Circle of Deception was released in 1959 and should have reached our shores one or two years later. Unfortunately, there's no knowing what Odeon was screening. By the way, trishaws are still around in Penang although they are no longer the kings of the road.

A third colour picture of the junction. I would believe that it could have been taken at a slightly later period in the 1960s. The overhead electrical lines are still there and it needs some further poking around to find out when the electric trolleybuses were taken off the roads. I can't see clearly whether the advertisements for the two cinemas were still there below the Boston Bar's windows but the India Tyres signboard further down the road had disappeared. {Update: The trolleybuses were removed from service on 31 July 1961.]

And this is the fourth colour picture of the Boston building that I was able to retrieve. The credit is given to a Ronnie Lee and it could have been the later part of the 1980s. Unfortunately, only part of the building could be seen but it was clear that the façade had already underwent extensive renovation. The windows of the Café and Bar have been glass-paned and the establishments likely fully air-conditioned. It seemed to me too that the Labour Soap advertisement had been dismantled. The textile shop could be called Ai Wah but it needs confirmation. The pink building further up Penang Road was the Chowrasta Market.

Today, this is the fate of the Boston building; the image retrieved from Google Maps. It's sad, forgotten and abandoned. Devoid of even a roof. A victim of the Penang Island City Council's decision - and by extension the Penang Government's - to build an overhead pedestrian crossing at where Penang Road, Burmah Road and Prangin Road meet. This concrete mess is not even well utilised despite an attempt in some recent years to improve on it by attaching lifts beside the staircases to make it friendlier to the disabled community. So you have one end of the pedestrian crossing with its two staircases ending right up against the Boston building. It is no wonder that the small businesses here have all closed up and moved away. For an iconic building right in the midst of the city, this has become its sad ending. 

[NOTE: There is also a Part 2 to this story. Chick here to read Part 2.}