Seongsu's story goes beyond cafés and factories. Modern water supply began at Ttukdo, while Seoul Forest opened to residents in 2005. Reading the Waterworks Museum alongside the park reveals two different roles: sustaining a city and making room for everyday rest.
Seoul's Arisu authority records the start of the city's waterworks at Ttukdo on September 1, 1908. The former pumping room became part of the Waterworks Museum in 2008. Construction, the start of water supply and the museum opening are distinct milestones.
The Seoul Forest Conservancy, which participated in operating the park, records its opening on June 18, 2005. Seoul also describes residents contributing volunteer work and funds. The park and the Waterworks Museum are separate places; one did not simply become the other.
Sources for these connections checked · Translation reviewed · These dates do not mean a site visit or a check of today's operations. Check official access and closure notices before visiting. Links open original sources; some are in Korean.
Printing, metalworking, auto repair, and small manufacturers filled blocks near transport routes and the Han River.
Factories, material suppliers, repair shops, and skilled makers formed one of Korea's largest handmade-shoe clusters.
Studios, galleries, and cafés moved into older workshops while manufacturing continued beside them.
Seongsu is often introduced through cafés and pop-up stores, but its street pattern makes more sense when you begin with work. Seoul’s Seongdong District traces the local handmade-shoe industry to factories and related firms that gathered here, followed by leather, components, materials, repair shops, and skilled makers. That network made shoemaking a neighborhood system rather than a single attraction.
The industrial inheritance is still visible in red-brick walls, wide loading doors, upper-floor workshops, and narrow streets used by deliveries. Not every old building was a shoe factory, and not every workshop has disappeared. The useful way to walk is to notice how manufacturing, repair, design, retail, cafés, and temporary brand spaces now occupy the same blocks.
The park is more than a green break at the end of the route. Official Seoul accounts describe Ttukseom as land used at different times for royal hunting, military reviews, waterworks, a golf course, a racecourse, and a sports park. Seoul Forest opened in 2005 on this layered urban ground.
Walking from the workshop streets toward the park therefore crosses two kinds of reuse: former industrial buildings taking on new programs, and a large tract of infrastructure becoming public landscape. The contrast is one of Seongsu’s clearest historical experiences.
Public records explain dates and places. Residents preserve the shops, school roads, sounds, and ordinary moments that maps cannot hold.
Begin with an easy riverside park walk.
서울 성동구 뚝섬로 273
This marks the park, not the exact site of the former racecourse.
Location source checked: 2026-09-18
Look for workshops that shaped the district.
See how old industrial buildings found new uses.
Seongsu Station or Seoul Forest Station
About 4 hoursWorking shoe and repair shops remain active. Give workshop entrances space and visit cafés outside the lunch rush.
Opening hours, admission, and transport conditions can change. Check the linked map and official information before you go.