Cikini had something for everyone

By Ida Indawati Khouw

With a zoo and swimming pool on their doorstep, children living along Jl. Cikini in Batavia, in what is Central Jakarta today, may have been the city's luckiest citizens. A look at the old world of Cikini is the 77th article in our series on Old Batavia.

JAKARTA (JP): In its heyday, Cikini's delights also included an ice cream parlor, bakery, restaurants, shops, cinemas and a first-class concert hall.

Those who grew up there in the early 1960s can still recall the excitement of spending days at Tjikini (the old-style spelling of Cikini) Zoo. In the Dutch era this was called Dierentuin, located at the present site of the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) cultural center.

Cikini Zoo was officially opened in November 1933, built on a 10-hectare estate donated by internationally renowned painter Raden Saleh Sjarif Bustaman.

It was administered by the Culturele Vereniging Planten en Dierentuin (Cultural Association for Botanical Gardens and Zoo), established in 1864, with Raden Saleh as a board member.

Raden Saleh's property also included what is now the PGI Cikini hospital area on the street bearing his name, at the junction of Jl. Cikini (see the Save Old Batavia article in The Jakarta Post's Jan. 22, 2000, edition).

A lifetime resident of the Cikini area, 57-year-old Ramly, still vividly remembers how he and his friends often spent time playing at the zoo after school.

Ramly's family lived at Jl. Tjikini III No. 8. "I think Tjikini zoo was like others in the world, with animal enclosures, grass fields with paths, and big trees," he recalled.

"The collection of animals was quite complete, including elephants, lions, crocodiles, birds, bears and others. But the most interesting thing for me was being able to play around with the elephants.

"The elephants' cages were built with iron fences, with spaces that children could squeeze through."

Sometimes Ramly, now the father of two children, also roller skated in the complex. "It was really interesting because there were many small roundabouts, usually with bird cages in the center."

Some children of Jl. Cikini were also privileged to have free entrance to the zoo, due to their friendship with the zoo director's son. "We had our own special 'entrance gate' so that we did not need to pay for a ticket," Ramly said.

Holiday

The Idul Fitri Islamic holiday was the most awaited moment.

"At that time there were visitors everywhere and we made money through the bike-parking service," he said.

For Yeny Mulia, 49, daughter of the owner of the famous Tjan Njan ice cream parlor formerly located parallel to the zoo, the most exciting times were when her nursemaid took her to the park to finish her early evening meal.

"Sometimes I had the meal while watching the performance of kuda lumping (horse puppet dance) troupe beggars," Yeny said, adding that scores of zoo visitors often enjoyed ice cream at her family's parlor afterwards.

The zoo, with its entrance marked by three art deco pillars, was more than just a home for animals.

Records from TIM show there were movie theaters, a tennis court, a dog-racing track and a meeting hall.

Batik designer Iwan Tirta, who spent his childhood in the Menteng district (Cikini also included the area), said he loved to visit the art deco-style Garden Hall cinema, which seated between 400 and 500 people.

"The cinema was also used as the concert hall. During the Japanese occupation (1942-1945) it was the venue for an annual singing contest for elementary school students in Java, as a part of the Japanese propaganda," Iwan said.

One propaganda song, Di Timur Matahari (The sun rises in the east) was compulsory in the contest.

"My school, the Sekolah Rakyat Mayumi elementary school (the foundation for the famous Perguruan Cikini school on Jl. Cikini No. 76), always won the contest," he said. The school for priyayi, or Javanese upper-class society, was established in late 1942 by nationalist women.

Iwan described the Garden Hall as having acoustics so renowned that top orchestras played there.

In 1964 the Kebon Binatang Tjikini (the official name since 1949) was moved to the Ragunan area in South Jakarta, due to growth in the Cikini area. The TIM cultural center was built on the former zoo site in 1968.

Iwan recalled with sadness his memories of the Raden Saleh mansion complex when it was turned into an intern camp for the Dutch during the Japanese occupation.

"As a child I witnessed how poor conditions were in the camps, with people pale in their sickness, and sometimes from being tortured," he said.

"It seemed that they were just waiting for death."

Next to the zoo was the Zwembad Tjikini (Tjikini swimming pool), built in 1925 and existing until the 1980s. It is now empty and surrounded by a wire fence.

Yeny said there were two pools, one shallow and another deep with a diving tower.

Ramly recalled: "At that time the bottom was just cement, with no porcelain or ceramics like those around now. But the pool was Olympic-sized, with complete facilities including a stand for spectators."

But Ramly said the pool had a poor lifeguard service, which allowed the loss of several lives -- including that of his older brother.

"My brother was found floating and died when he was swimming there," he said.

The history of the Tjikini area would be incomplete without mentioning its reputation as a shopping district, especially for Europeans.

A row of old two-story shops, built in 1920s, can still be seen. "Those were the modern shop buildings during the Batavia era," said Wisnu Murti Ardjo, chairman of the city's restoration council.

Development of the Tjikini area followed the move of Batavia's city center to Weltevreden (areas in Central Jakarta that now include Menteng) in the early 19th century. This was due to the deteriorated condition of the old city located at the present downtown Kota.

The shops were European in style, Wisnu said, with long, narrow corridors and wide display windows.

All kinds of European items were available, with photographic shops, tobacconists, art galleries, optics, a pharmacy, and many others.

The pharmacy, the Nederlandsche Apotheek located right in the intersection of Jl. Cikini and Jl. Gondangdia (now Jl. R.P. Soeroso), was the most famous in Batavia. At is now the site of the Kimia Farma pharmacy.

The beautiful former Borsumij Wehry trading company building is still there, although it is now the Cikini post office.

There are a number of stories about how Cikini got its unusual name. Iwan believed that it derived from the Sundanese word ci, meaning little river.

Legend also says it has a relationship with Gondangdia, the name of a street parallel to Jl. Cikini.

"The story goes that a thief was chased into the area," said former city tourist guide Yanny E. Dharmawan, who was told the legend by her teacher when she was student of a tourism high school.

"A person who grabbed the thief cried out 'Cik ini' (Sir, here he is), and was told 'Gondang dia' (Hold him)."

Jl. Cikini was also the location of an attempt on the life of first president Sukarno in 1957. A bomb blast occurred there when Sukarno was visiting a bazaar at Perguruan Cikini school, at Jl. Cikini No. 67 where his oldest son Guntur Soekarnoputra studied at the time.

With its remarkable history, both Iwan and Wisnu agreed that Jl. Cikini deserved to be preserved as a cultural boulevard.