Map Of Old Greentown, Ipoh

I have searched and I could not find a map of OLD Greentown (Ipoh, Perak) online. I do have 2 partial maps of Greentown from Shell and Mobileoil (circa 1960) but they were no good simply because they were incomplete. Someone did give me a 1959 contour map of the Ipoh district earlier this year but I could not reconcile this map with what I know. There were no road names (which make things harder) and for about half of Greentown the roads were not properly drawn. Just some blocks on the map to denote 'houses' and I have to resort to guessing where the roads/lanes are - and I got myself confused.

Old Greentown

My only resort then is to draw the map myself. And with a little help from here and there, this is the result of my attempt: a map of OLD Greentown that I knew and grew up in during the 1970s and 1980s. Do click on the map below to view in full size.

By no means is this map complete as I am working with incomplete information. So this is very much a "work in progress" map and I will be updating it as and when new information is available. For one reason or another, I just could not recall the topography at certain areas within old Greentown. Recalling the names of some roads were just as challenging even though I have used these roads many many times before in the past. No matter how hard I tried, my memory was always blank.

For those that didn't know, Greentown today is very very much different from the old Greentown of yesteryears. With the introduction of the business and commercial centres some 20 - 25 years ago, about 90% of the road system within this area was completely redrawned, leaving not much of the old Greentown that I grew up in left today. And this development has not stopped. As a matter of fact, it is slowly inching itself eastwards around the Parkson area. Last year, if I am not mistaken, Jalan Selamat still had about 4 houses along this road. Today there is only one - and that's where the Perodua showroom is.

Note: I think I have made Jalan Abdul Aziz a bit short, and Jalan Club should lean a bit more to the right and consequently Jalan Yusof a bit shorter. I will fix this in the next revision of this map.

Some Guesswork Involved

On this map, the roads drawn in any other colour but BLACK are just my guesstimates.

The following have been drawn base on what I could inferred from comments and pictures made at IpohWorld's blog postings:

• 3rd Avenue in LIGHT BROWN , from a comment made by Remy b Jaafar;
• the road in DARK BLUE, from the picture in the blog post "Where Do You Think This Place Is?". There is actually a road just after the house on the right cutting across the field to the left in the photo (visible only in the high resolution photograph). While drawing this map, it seems to meet up with Jalan Abidin. I wonder if this is correct?

The road in LIGHT BLUE is just a guess from my memory. I seem to recall the existence of a road there although I have not been in there before. A few years ago, I did notice some old houses behind Syuen Hotel. I believe this is where this road leads to. I have not been there recently so I am not sure if the houses are still there today.

On Google Maps, I did find a road called Lebuh Satu. I am assuming that this is 1st Avenue. I have no idea where 2nd Avenue is.

The only way for the road in RED and DARK BROWN to go starting from Jalan Iskandar is to meet up at 3rd Avenue. The 1959 contour map of Ipoh, mentioned above, seems to indicate that there is at least one road that does this. I hope I am right.

In the Shell map, there are two lanes (not drawn on the map) that seems to make no sense to me:

• Lorong Chulan, that seems to encircle half of Jalan Padang (on the side closer to Jalan Iskandar) starting from Jalan Club; and
• Lorong Ali, that seems to connect Lorong Chulan to Jalan Iskandar.

Anybody knows anything about these two lanes? Or is this a mistake on the old Shell map?

I may have missed out on some roads/lanes, or maybe even mistakingly named certain roads/lanes. Some remained unnamed simply because I do not know. Please do leave a comment below is you spot any mistakes or if there is any additional information that you would like to share. Anonymous comments is allowed by the way.

Thank You

I would like to convey my appreciation to the readers of IpohWorld.org for sharing their thoughts and memories (and photographs too!) of old Greentown in which much of the work on this map is based. A special word of thanks to Mohan RC, who stepped up and shared his knowledge on the road layout along Jalan Iskandar, something that I have been struggling with for months. Without his help, this map, and consequently this blog post, would not have been possible.

Also a word of gratitude to HASNO ZAKARIA for reminiscing about his joyride in the Greentown-Silibin bus route that ultimately helped me to identifying Jalan Yusof - the road that connects Jalan Padang and Jalan Iskandar.

Superimposing Then And Now

I thought it would be fun if I were to superimpose the map of old Greentown over the new. I hope you will find this interesting.

Getting the current map of Greentown is easy - I just go over to Google Maps and made a screen capture. Then some editing with GIMP and this is what I have below. Do click on the map to view the picture in full size.

Enjoy!