This week, Pixels & Grains takes a look at the charming area around the Esplanade, and how its bordering skyline against our waters has changed since the 1960s, with pictures from Pakcik Salleh, David Papworth and Belinda Tan.

THEN & NOW - Picture of my wife Nori at the Esplanade (facing west) taken in 1969 and 2011.

(The Esplanade - facing EAST) THEN & NOW - Two photos of my wife Nori, taken at the Esplanade in 1969 and 2011. All the buildings seen here were built on reclaimed land.

TWILIGHT: View from the opposite side of the bridge. Try taking pictures, any pictures, during the short duration of the twilight hour or "magic hour" and you will be amazed with the results.

These three photos and their accompanying captions were sent to us by Pakcik Salleh, a Flickr user (whose Flickr sets you can check out here) also happens to be the uncle of Taufiq Jaafar, who had shared with us The Story of Lorong Mydin, featured in previous episodes of Pixels & Grains.

The next five photos and captions are from David Papworth, who owns a collection of his father’s old photos shot during his service with the RAF at Tengah, dated from June 1967 to December 1969. He has scanned several hundreds of these photos such that they can be accessed by others, so feel free to check out the rest of his pictures on Picasa here.

Elizabeth Walk- The walking area was paved with red and yellow paving slabs.

“This is my sister and I taken on the water front”

“My Sister Gill and I looking at the fountain located along Elizabeth Walk”

A better view of the fountain

A beautiful close up of the fountain, pre-restoration.

These next two photos were taken by Belinda Tan, a lovely and outgoing lady shutterbug who goes around exploring Singapore taking some pretty great pictures. She also has an active Facebook group – Singapore Heritage, Monuments, Places of Interests which you could go check out.

Anyway, this fountain is known as the Tan Kim Seng Fountain, named after Tan Kim Seng, a Chinese merchant and philanthropist, constructed to commemorate his contributions towards Singapore’s first public waterworks. Elizabeth Walk is now known as the Esplanade Park.

As you can see in the photo below, the fountain and its surrounding area have undergone some changes, evident from both sets of photos above that the fountain has been repainted, the striking red and yellow tiled flooring had been changed, some buildings in the background have been constructed, altering the skyline, and some land had also been reclaimed for that.

This same fountain in 2010, after preservation efforts and restoration works.

The Esplanade from the inside

We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s episode of Pixels & Grains, be sure to stay tuned for next week’s, because there are still a lot more pictures of people and places worth looking out for!

Also, if you wish to share your pictures with us just like Salleh, David and Belinda did, be sure to email us at yesterdaysg@gmail.com.