Dakota Crescent is one of Singapore’s oldest housing estates built by Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the government development authority, in 1958.Only 15 original blocks, all of which are even numbered, remain. These low-rise flats are located at Old Airport Road. Many of the residents who formerly resided in the old estate of Dakota Crescent were once victims, or relatives or descendants of such persons, of several fire calamities which destroyed the numerous kampongs (villages) all across Singapore at that time, such as mainly from the so-called "Friday The 13th Fire" at Kampong Tiong Bahru on 13 February 1959 and the big fire at Kampong Koo Chye on 5 April 1958 (present-day Lorong 3 Geylang) in Kallang.