One of the first streets to be paved in colonial Singapore, North Bridge Road in the 1920s and 1930s was a popular location for Chinese book retailers such as the Popular Book Company and the Shanghai Book Company. Many of these stores relocated to the nearby Bras Basah Complex in the 1980s, which is known as Book City, or ‘Shu Cheng’ in Mandarin. However, the decline in the number of Chinese readers in recent years has resulted in the restructuring or closure of many of these institutions.
