Anyone who newly arrives in our city state is very likely to be fascinated by the unusual aesthetic that is Orchard Towers. Sporting s architectural trends, the year-old institution stands on prime land space, smearing the shopping belt of Orchard Road with its sepia tinge and dingy appearance. The magnetic establishment is home to several renowned eateries, including three lauded Thai restaurants on its third floor.
Two employees of rival massage parlours ended up in hospital and subsequently on front page news recently, when they assailed each other with sharp high-heeled shoes and claws a flying, in a bid to win the heart of a potential customer passing by. No sound of mind and morally upright lawmaker would move for a prostitution den to be built in the heart of a tourist hub.
When Orchard Towers was built in , it was meant as a retail and office hub. In its primordial years, early versions of Ipanema and Naughty Girl that rented spaces alongside tailors and electronics stores started carrying out seedy business, which opened the flood gates. Before the government could act, a litany of neon-lit nightclubs had taken up residence in the degenerating towers. In , two managers of the now-defunct Famous Hot Models pub were found guilty of pimping β selling oral sex by their Filipina hostesses β on the premises of their establishment.
Despite the public outcry for a clean-up that the case sparked, it is difficult to believe that in-house sex is a thing of the past in the watering holes of Orchard Towers. Besides good food and no-frills coitus, Orchard Towers has also been the dumping ground of two bodies of a highly publicised double murder as well as the scene of countless raids of illegal immigrant employees whose work permits or visas have either expired or were lacking, which involved dramatic wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Its owners have been embroiled in high-profile court cases, including a peculiarly comical one where one of its partners was summoned to court for the number of dogs she kept in her house. A fortune-teller had advised her to keep her huge litter of dogs, as he claimed that they were the source of her luck, against the regulation of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore.
