At the beginning of WWII, two enterprising Hockchia businessmen obtained permission from the occupying Japanese authorities to operate an amusement park named Tai Tong Ah Amusement Park. It had stages for shows, a dance hall, coffee parlours and a large gambling hall. After the war, its popularity declined and permission was sought from the British authorities to convert the park to a marketplace and Beauty World Market was opened in July 1947.
Beauty World was named after the daughter of one of the owners, Mr Giam. As a reminder of its previous existence as an amusement park, it was called 'World' to follow in the trend of naming amusement parks in Singapore as 'Happy World', 'New World' and 'Great World'. In 1950, there were 34 stalls in Beauty World Market but by 1976, there were 166 stalls! The open-air market continued to have stages for shows as well as drinks with hostesses known as 'coffee fires'. The area expanded further with the building of Beauty World Town in 1962 just beside the market. Blocks of new shophouses were built housing coffee shops, provision shops and textile shops.
Sadly, in the late 70s, a real fire put an end to the market. By the 1980s, it had closed down. Today, it is an open field and car park across the road from the newer Beauty World Centre.