Pagoda Street

Pagoda Street was named after the pagoda-like gopuram of Sri Mariamman Temple, the largest and oldest Hindu temple in Singapore, located on the South Bridge Road end of the street.

This leads to the Cantonese to call this street as kwong hup yuan kai.

[1] By the 1950s, the shophouses changed to retail trade and services and became well known for textile and tailor shops.

[1] The architecture of the shophouses on Pagoda Street and other parts of Chinatown originates from the Raffles Town Plan of 1822, which stipulated the material that should be used to build the shophouses as well as the need to have covered walkways of five-foot width (hence known as "five-foot ways").

In the late 1980s, Chinatown was gazetted as a Historic District for conservation and the street was included.