Singapore - Orchard Road

Named after the many nutmeg and pepper plantations that lined the street in the 1840s, Orchard Road was sparsely populated by plantation owners like Scotts, Cairnhill, and Cuppage whose names are familiar street names in the vicinity today. In the 1900s, a mysterious disease swept through the nutmeg plantations, wiping them out within a year. Because of its location in a valley, floods were also common. They were only controlled in 1965 when Stamford Canal - part of which runs below the pedestrian mall fronting Wisma Atria Shopping Centre today - was deepened and widened. In the 1970s, pioneering landmarks like C. K. Tangs, Plaza Singapura and the Mandarin Hotel came up and led the way for entertainment complexes. Brick by brick, and block by block, towers of glass and steel lined what used to be mud-tracks to make Orchard Road the premier shopping belt today. [ Singapore Tourism Board Website ]