There are several lighting and electrical shops along Balestier Road, which is also home to the Ceylon Sports Club and the Indian Association.

As new settlers populated Balestier Road from the late 19th century, they established villages and grew crops such as taro.

[6] Both the Singapore Improvement Trust and the Housing and Development Board built flats in the area known as St. Michael's Estate.

[8] The Chinese labourers, who settled in the area, built a temple in 1847 which still exists known as Goh Chor Tua Pek Kong Temple (梧槽大伯公廟), with the area having one of the last free-standing wayang stage in Singapore that was built in 1906 by Tan Boo Liat, a wealthy Hokkien Peranakan philanthropist and community leader.

Hoover Theatre is a favourite for fans of the Shaw Brothers’ gong-fu films during the sixties and seventies that was opened in 1960.

However, in 1996, both Hoover and President Theatre were demolished to make way for the Shaw Plaza that is a mixed development consisting of restaurant, departmental stall and residential apartment.

A further characteristic of this urban form was the width of the shophouses were generally determined by the distance it could span due to the use of timber beams between brick party walls.

The primary stylistic features of an art deco shophouse are the vertical emphasis and concrete as a common material in construction to achieve smooth surfaces.

It was constructed in the early 1920s to provide local vendors and hawkers with an allocated space to sell their harvested crops and cooked food.

In 1924, before the start of major developments in Balestier Road, the open market was known to be a bustling site despite being located a distance from other more prominent landmarks and streets.

Later, rows of small huts with a pitched zinc roof were added in 1925 to shelter users from the frequent rain and the sun.

The government obtained Balestier's estate and leased a portion of it to Chinese farmers[20] while another segment was turned into a burial area for patients from Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

The rise in hawkers present on Balestier Road resulted in the sidewalks constructed for pedestrians being transformed into a makeshift market selling vegetables, fruits, cooked food, and beverages.

Meanwhile, Balestier was still in the phase of redevelopment into a commercial, industrial and private residential district, resulting in existing residents relocating elsewhere.

However, in the past, the roof design was built to shelter the wet market without considering its possibility to be converted into a food centre.

After the transformation from a wet market into a food centre, the ceiling is too low to adequately contain the exhaust pipes which radiate heat throughout the interior of the place.

Furthermore, as the roof is made of zinc, it conducts heat when it is exposed to direct sunlight, making it uncomfortable for customers to eat within the space, especially in the afternoon.

The elevation of the market is a measure to deter flooding due to high surface runoff and typology of the site which occurred quite frequently in the past.

Its value and identity as an example of vernacular infrastructural design, preserved for the newer generations as an educational tool to illustrate the phenomenon of wet markets and hawker centres in the past.