KUALA LUMPUR, Feb. 20 -- Just a short walk from three of Chinatown's best-known places of worship - the Guang Di Temple, Sri Maha Mariamman Temple and Szin Sze Si Ya Temple - a narrow lane is being quietly reintroduced to the city.

Jalan Sang Guna, formerly called Drury Lane and for the longest time referred to as Madras Lane, sits tucked behind the busy Jalan Tun H.S. Lee corridor, near the Petaling Street tourist belt.

For decades, it survived as a service lane and later as a fading strip of sundry shops, its ageing shophouses standing as reminders of a much larger role it played in Kuala Lumpur's urban life.

Once known for Chinese theatre performances, a cinema and later a bustling hawker street centred around a wet market, the lane...