Brickfields (GPS: 3.12922, 101.68613) is a neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur. Located to the southwestern part of the city centre, it is bordered by Jalan Sultan Sulaiman and Jalan Damansara to the north, Jalan Bangsar to the west, and the Klang River to the south.
Today Brickfields is best known as the location of KL Sentral, the country's main transportation hub, where most of the railway lines of Kuala Lumpur converge. This area, which was once the location of the Malayan Railway train depot, has been transformed into one of towering skyscrapers surrounding the central railway station.
Brickfields was one of the two commercial hubs for the Indian community in Kuala Lumpur. In early 2010, the area along Jalan Tun Sambanthan was spruced up and rebranded as the new Little India of Kuala Lumpur. This involved the construction of decorative arches as well as change in traffic flow. However traders in the area reported a decline in business following the beautification, blaming it to difficulty in finding parking space has discouraged locals and tourists from visiting the area. The Brickfields Car Park which the Kuala Lumpur City Hall had planned to construct was only completed in 2016.
Today, the Little India of Brickfields appears to be a colourful enclave that continues to thrive under the towering skyscrapers of nearby KL Sentral. Cars are seen parked along Jalan Tun Sambanthan, often illegally, as parking lots are drawn only on the east side of the road.
Malaysian Association of the Blind: 13, Jalan Tun Sambanthan 4, Brickfields, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; website: www.mab.org.my; phone: +60 3-2272 2677 (GPS: 3.13006, 101.68417)
Malaysian Association for the Blind 2, Jalan Tun Sambanthan 3, Brickfields, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; website: www.mia.org.my; phone: +60 3-2722 9000 (GPS: 3.13579, 101.6908) (GPS: 3.13258, 101.69104)
NU Sentral Mall, Jalan Tun Sambanthan (GPS: 3.13299, 101.68694)
Brickfields is shaped like a leaf. Jalan Tun Sambanthan and Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad are the two main roads running through the neighbourhood.
Colourful decorative arches front the wide pedestrian mall in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur (8 July, 2016)
A brief history of Brickfields
Brickfields began as a hodgepodge settlement in the 1880s. The pioneer developer of the Brickfields area was Kapitan Cina Yap Ah Loy, who established a brick-making factory in the area, giving it the name we know of today. The brick-making industry continued to flourish and Brickfields was further developed by subsequent Kapitan Cina, including Kapitan Cina Yap Kwan Seng, who was the fifth and last Chinese community headman of Kuala Lumpur.
For much of the 20th century, and even today, Brickfields has a high concentration of Indians. They are in fact ethnic Ceylonese Tamils who were brought by the British to work for the Malayan Railway, which has its Kuala Lumpur depot right here, a stone's throw from the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station. In honor of the Indian community, the main road at Brickfields - formerly Brickfields Main Road or Jalan Brickfields - was renamed Jalan Tun Sambanthan, after Tun V.T. Sambanthan, an Indian who was one of the founding fathers of the country.
By Train:
Terminating at KL Sentral are the KTM services between Singapore and Butterworth, with continuation to Hatyai and Bangkok, the Electric Train Service to Ipoh, the KTM Komuter train service and the Light Rail Transit service. At Jalan Tun Sambanthan is the KL Sentral Monorail Station while at Jalan Damansara is the Muzium Negara MRT Station (presently under construction).
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