North Bridge Road - Hiruma Shokai (Images from the Past)

The rare photos feature a row of shop houses in 1941 and this photos are from  a batch of photos by Harrison Forman. Fortunately with some cross referencing, we are able to identify this are shophouses located at North Bridge Road. To be specific, the current Raffles Hotel has now replaced this buildings today. 

 

Hiruma Shokai is located at 324 North Bridge Road Fortunately, i am able to see some of the banners and able to identify the following companies/merchants  (from furthest left to nearest):
Jubilee Theatre  - 340 North Bridge Road 

M. Yamamoto Dental Surgery  - 338 North Bridge Road
Nanya Shoyko
Sakura & Co
Maru A Co.
Mitsuboshi Electric Co,
Wah Heng & Co (Bakery)
Hiruma Shokai - 324 North Bridge Road

 

source: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries

source: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries

Hiruma Shokai
The shop sells crocodile and lizard skins, bags, leather goods and Japanese goods. 

The buildings are all long gone and in its place is where Raffles Hotel stretch is today. 

[research on-going]

References

Harrison Forman Collection of the American Geographical Society Library of the University Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries
NewspaperSG. (website). National Library Board, Singapore.

Related Post

Label: Images from the Past

About Harrison Forman and his Collection

Harrison Forman (1904-1978) was an American photographer and journalist. He wrote for The New York Times and National Geographic. During World War II he reported from China and interviewed Mao Zedong. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in Oriental Philosophy. His collection of diaries and fifty thousand photographs are now at American Geographical Society Library at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The Harrison Forman Photo Collection contains over 3,800 prints and over 300 negatives. This is a fraction of the total Forman collection, sized at 98,000 images, most of which are in 35mm slide format. While the geographical coverage between the slides and photo collections is similar, the photo collection contains Forman’s early work including his Tibet imagery, the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, the Henan Famine, and the Blitzkrieg of Poland.