hotel – BIGBert

Took a heart-thumping “stroll” at the abandoned Mitre Hotel along Killiney Road. Ben (CB5) brought Ah Tung and me there. My first time entering a ruin, with floorboards that was either rotten or had holes in them. I had to watch my each step, and move with my “Qing Gong” so not to crack any piece of the floorboard. For that 1 hour in the abandoned hotel, my heart was constantly thumping non-stop at a rapid rate….

Most of the pictures were not very sharp because all were handheld and mostly shot on a 50mm Wide open at F1.4. Well, the aim was to get the shot out and since I am not going to blow it up bigger than an A4 image or MAYBE not even printing it out, it doesnt really matter. = )

Enjoy.

History (Plugged from the web):
The Mitre was once a decent Chinese-run down-market hotel. The original owners built it in the 1920s or 1930s, and it might have then been a nice family place. There’s an overgrown badminton court in the garden. Spectators could have sat on a stone bench under a banyan tree. It was probably more raucous in the 1960s and 1970s, when it became the favorite temporary abode of commercial divers and other oil field workers. The mirror behind the bar is covered in stickers from oil companies from those days, and the backroom has a pile of suitcases left by divers who never returned – because of death or retirement, nobody can say.

Upstairs, tables in the common area are covered in old newspapers and plastic bottles, furniture is overturned, and windows are boarded. A few brave souls still rent out rooms. Maybe they have financial difficulties; maybe they like to mingle with the ghosts of another era. Downstairs, in the lobby and bar, broken down furniture still serves its intended use; canned or bottled beer runs S$4 a serving.

Uncle isn’t supposed to serve beer beyond midnight to non-residents, but if you go late, you can rattle the steel grate he closes at the Cinderella hour. A bit of wheedling and an extra Singapore dollar or two usually brings him round.

After the first owners died, surviving family members began fighting over the hectare or two of land that must now be worth hundreds of millions of Singapore dollars. The case is still held up in Singapore courts, while Uncle and the rest of the family wait for a resolution and windfall and the Mitre languishes in dusty history. Long may they wrangle. When they are done, the Mitre will be replaced with blocks of flats like the ones looking down on it now.

Need a leak?