Etymology and History
The street, one of the oldest streets in Singapore, was built shortly after Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819, and appeared in Raffles' Town Plan of Chinatown.
Cross Street was built in the 1820s and was originally mainly a housing estate for Indian migrant workers, mainly boatmen who and operated shops selling goat's milk, mutton and herbs. The native place names for the street in the past indicate of the dominance of Indians in the area. In the later years, Cross Street was dominated by the Chinese, when Chinatown expanded into Telok Ayer. In the 1950s until the late 1970s, the street housed a number of Chinese stationery and book shops.
The Chinese called this street kiat leng kia koi, or "Kling man's street" (kling is a derogatory local term for Indians). The Tamils called it palkadei sadakku, or "street of the milk shops", while the Malays called it kampong susu or "milk village".
Read more about this topic: Cross Street
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