Clarke Quay takes its name from Sir Andrew Clarke, Singapore's second Governor, who served from 1873 to 1875. From the early 1800s, the quay was the working heart of the Singapore River: five blocks of godowns and shophouses where bumboats unloaded cargo, coolies hauling sacks of rubber, spices and cloth through streets thick with noise and competing dialects.

By the 1980s, the river had become so polluted that, as one tour guide puts it, the smell made Bugis Street at its worst seem pleasant. A decade-long government clean-up, completed in 1987 by a 91-year-old civil engineer and his team, transformed it. The quay was gazetted as a heritage conservation area in 1989, and its restored warehouses became bars, restaurants and clubs.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use Clarke Quay to trace the full arc of the Singapore River, from chaotic colonial trading hub to the cleaned-up waterfront it is today.