Just across Menteng Huis shopping mall are restaurants housed in structures with large windows of the neoclassical architectural style, redolent of the Dutch colonial era as they stand in a row along their bustling, modern surroundings on Jl. Cikini.

The street in Central Jakarta is where Jakarta’s past and present meet. And while its historical and aesthetic value is visible to the naked eye, Cikini is just another street to almost everyone who rushes by.

Moved by its concerns for the capital's forgotten history, the Indonesia Hidden Heritage (IHH) preservation community hosted last Sunday a tour to promote awareness of the village's wealth of history: “Trip to Cikini: The Other Side of the Story”.

Dozens of people who shared an interest in the city’s past, which rarely finds mention in the history textbooks used at schools, took part in the walking tour down Cikini's memory lane.

Ati Argunadi, 61, recalled when, as a girl in the 1960s, she visited Jakarta’s first zoo, Taman Raden Saleh. It was the one thing she knew about "old Cikini" before the tour.

Taman Raden Saleh was founded in the 1860s, according to Indonesian Hidden Heritage. In 1966, the zoo was relocated to a 140-hectare tract of land in Ragunan, South Jakarta. Its former site in Cikini, which once belonged to renowned 19th century Indonesian painter Raden Saleh, is now part of the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) arts center.

“I am interested in history and photography. Jakarta has a lot of history that is little known, and it is all interesting,” said Ati, who lives in Depok, West Java.

“I wish people were more interested in historical sites,” she said, sighing while directing her gaze toward a packed, modern coffee chain opposite Tjikini Bakoel Koffie, founded in 1878 and one of the oldest coffee shops in the country.

Heni Puspitasari, 50, who lives in Cinere, Depok, brought along her 21-year-old daughter to the tour in hopes that the pair of them could learn more about Jakarta's history.

“As I grow older, it's much more fun to take part on a tour like this where I can visit and learn directly, especially since stories about Cikini didn't appear much in the history textbooks,” she said.

The tour began at the Jakarta Planetarium and Observatory in the TIM complex, offering the participants a look at astronomy and the technological advancements humankind has made.

But the real journey into the past took off at the city library, also in the TIM complex. The library has a small gallery that displays photographs from the Hotel des Indes on Jl. Gajah Mada — once the grandest hotel in Asia — to portraits of Jakarta's governors, providing a historical lens through which to view Batavia — the historical name for Jakarta.

Tucked away on Jl. Cikini some 50 meters from the library stands the abandoned facade of the Tan Ek Tjoan factory, the oldest bakery in Indonesia that was initially established in 1921 in Bogor.

A classic bread cart is the only functioning remnant of the famed bread factory in Cikini that dates back to 1955, although its modern cousins are still used to sell loaves of bread today. The old cart is placed outside the site of the former factory every day as a reminder that the brand still survives amid the fierce competition of the modern age. Today, Tan Ek Tjoan runs a more modest bakery in Ciputat, South Tangerang.

Another famous Cikini landmark is a colonial structure where a sign once hung bearing the name Tjikini Post Kantoor — the Dutch colonial post office. The white building, which features a European-style vestibule with large windows that is authentic to East Indies architecture, today bears the iconic orange sign of the Indonesian postal service: Kantor Pos.

The walking tour ended at Huize de Vijfsprong — the history of which can be found only with difficulty in Indonesian literature.

It remains unclear when the white structure was built, but by 1939 it was widely known among local denizens as Huize de Vijfsprong, which translates to penta-junction house and is named for the five-road intersection where it stands.

Meanwhile, the Christen Vrouwenbond (Christian Women’s Union) building was once used during the Dutch colonial era as a poorhouse for women and children. The building is now known as the "Cikini 37 house", and holds the offices of an apartment developer.

“Cikini is a historical, cultural and diplomatic street. The first foreign ministry was also located here and our first foreign minister, Ahmad Soebardjo, lived at Jl. Cikini No. 82,” said Nova Wazir of the Indonesian Hidden Heritage.

Founded in November 2018, the community says it has had positive feedback from the tour's participants. Nova says that each tour, which costs Rp 100,000 (US$7.27) per person, attracts 10 to 50 people interested in visiting Jakarta's many historical sites.

“People pass by Kenari Market in Central Jakarta almost every day, but do they know that the alley behind the market was an opium production center during the Dutch colonial era?” she said. “There are many stories of the past in our own backyards that we don’t know about. That’s the kind of knowledge we offer through our program.”

Indonesian Hidden Heritage's next tour will visit Santa Maria Catholic Church in Central Jakarta, which was built in 1857 and housed one of Indonesia's first schools for girls. (trn)

Popular

Govt insists on growth target as World Bank lowers forecast

Europe’s skepticism about US firms reaches Asia

Sovereignty concerns loom over new security pact with US