Go down into the last civilian air raid shelter
Under a block of flats, 1940
The shelter occupies the basement of Block 78 Guan Chuan Street, in the middle of the Tiong Bahru estate. From the street it is an unmarked door in an ordinary block of flats.
Why it's unique
It is the last remaining pre-war civilian air raid shelter in Singapore, and the only one ever built into public housing. The Singapore Improvement Trust — the colonial predecessor of the Housing Board — put it under a residential block in 1940: 1,500 square metres, rated for 1,600 people, with blast walls and its own ventilation.
It was used. Around a hundred people from the surrounding blocks sheltered here during the Japanese air raids of December 1941 and January 1942, in the weeks before Singapore fell. Then it was sealed and the estate carried on living above it for seventy years.
Before you go
**Access is the hard part and you should plan around it.** The shelter is not open on ordinary days. It opens for the Singapore HeritageFest and for guided tours run through ROOTS, slots are limited, and they book out.
Check the ROOTS listings well before you travel rather than hoping. If you cannot get in, the Tiong Bahru estate above is worth the trip on its own — 1930s streamline-moderne public housing, still lived in, and the oldest surviving estate in the country.