About Chowrasta Market

Penang to get heritage experts to preserve Chowrasta Bazaar
By K. KASTURI DEWI - Friday March 19, 2010 ; The Star

THE state will engage heritage experts to carry out a study on how to preserve the heritage value of the more than century-old Chowrasta Bazaar in Penang Road.

Komtar assemblyman Ng Wei Aik said the state was also holding talks with Think City Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Khazanah Holdings, and the Penang Municipal Council on methods to revive the building, which is having some structural problems.

“Plans to redevelop the bazaar this year could not be carried out due to insufficient funds. The council’s allocation of RM1mil is not enough and the state has to look at other options to raise the money.

“If options are made available for the re-development of the bazaar is feasible, then work on the project could start next year,” he said when contacted yesterday.

Plans to redevelop the building began in 2002 and there were proposals to relocate the traders at the bazaar to Jalan S.P. Chelliah.

However, the idea had been scrapped two years ago due to long-standing problems such as objections by the traders and insufficient budget.

Built in 1890 by George Town municipality, the front portion of the bazaar facing Penang Road was rebuilt in 1920.
Source: The Star

GEORGE TOWN, Penang in UNESCO’s World Heritage List

Eight new sites, from the Straits of Malacca, to Papua New Guinea and San Marino, added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List - Monday, July 7, 2008
The World Heritage Committee meeting in Quebec City has added eight new cultural sites to UNESCO’s World Heritage List on the morning of the 7 of July. With these inscriptions, Papua New Guinea and San Marino enter the World Heritage List for the first time.
The new sites (in Malaysia) inscribed are:
Melaka and George Town, historic cities of the Straits of Malacca (Malaysia) have developed over 500 years of trading and cultural exchanges between East and West in the Straits of Malacca. The influences of Asia and Europe have endowed the towns with a specific multicultural heritage that is both tangible and intangible. With its government buildings, churches, squares and fortifications, Melaka demonstrates the early stages of this history originating in the 15th-century Malay sultanate and the Portuguese and Dutch periods beginning in the early 16th century. Featuring residential and commercial buildings, George Town represents the British era from the end of the 18th century. The two towns constitute a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia.

(source: from: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/450/)

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