Goodbye, Clifford Pier

Channel News Asia reported yesterday that Clifford Pier will cease operations from today, 1 April 2006. The top view of this 73-year old pier, named after Sir Hugh Charles Clifford, then Governor of the Straits Settlement, graces the home page of this weblog. It was reported that no more boats will call at this historic pier anymore to pick up and drop off passengers. This job will reportedly be taken over by the Marina South Pier (indicated as the New Clifford Pier in the map?). The reason cited for the closure is the building of the Marina Barrage project, which was previously described as consisting of damming up the mouth of the Marina Bay (so no boats can come into and go out of the Bay area?). This will indeed be a major milestone in Singapore's history because yet another landmark will be transformed.

Funny, for a major change such as this, you'd expect to hear about it sooner rather than later. Mediacorp's story was posted up on their website at 7:54 last evening and covered in their broadcast bulletins around the same time. That's less than 6 hours before Clifford Pier would cease operations. I would have like to have been alerted earlier so I could have made a visit to the pier for some picture taking. Oh well, I still have some recent photos.