Merchant Road

Merchant Road connects New Bridge Road and Clemenceau Avenue. At its junction with Keng Cheow Street, Merchant Road branches into four one-way roads. Two roads lead to highways, while the other two connect Clemenceau Avenue and Eu Tong Sen Street.

Description
Merchant Road used to connect New Bridge Road to Merchant Lane. The road was called “Theatre Street”, referring to the cluster of Chinese opera houses and regular street performances in the area. It was later renamed Merchant Road for the many merchants that began congregating and residing there.

The most popular features of the road, when it was still Theatre Street, were the Thong Chai Medical Institution built in 1892 and a small hawker-cum-market centre located there in the early 20th century. The Thong Chai Medical Institution, at the junction of Merchant Road and Eu Tong Sen Street, was frequented by Chinese immigrants for free medical treatment. Read Bridge, near Merchant Road, was named after William Henry Macleod Read, a businessman and a popular public figure. Read Crescent Park is enclosed by the semi-circular Read Crescent and borders Merchant Road on one side.

As part of urban renewal during the 1990s, the Urban Redevelopment Authority put up many sites on Merchant Road for sale.10 Currently, hotels such as Swissotel Merchant Court and Park Regis can be found on either side of Merchant Road.