1960s Hong Kong

Different views of Hong Kong in the 1960s, starting with:

1960s Hong Kong in words

Andrew Craig-Bennett's excellent series about Hong Kong's history includes:

• Hong Kong in the late Fifties and early Sixties
  The 1960s were probably the defining decade in the formation of the Hong Kong identity as it is today. Read more...
   
• A note on "Fragrant grease"
  Hong Kong in the Fifties and Sixties, especially the Sixties, was a nest of corruption, springing from the population explosion. There was unmet demand for just about everything, and allocation of resources was an obvious field for corruption. Low Government salaries certainly contributed so far as local officials were concerned, but the Englishmen in the Government service had no such excuse. In fairness to them, though, they were often very fine people in other respects - senior and junior policemen and firemen were often brave, efficient and corrupt at the same time. Read more ...
   
• More Sixties Stuff
  Expanding public education, riots, "R&R", the Confrontation Tie, and Mainland China's views of British Hong Kong during this time. Read more ...

1960s Hong Kong in photos

I've chosen a few favourites to begin with (you can click on any photo to see a larger copy):

Arrive by air

Kai Tak Observation Deck

Or arrive by sea: P&O's SS Chusan, shown berthed at Kowloon Wharf

View over the Railway Terminus & Clock Tower towards Central

Central banks decorated for Princess Alexandra's visit in 1961

Inside HSBC

Traffic Police Pagoda

Queueing for water

Victoria Park playground

Repulse Bay Beach

Fisher-folk children at Sha Tau Kok

Jam-packed Staunton's Creek, Aberdeen

Bus on Lantau

Taxi & bus on Des Voeux Road Central

Nathan Road, showing Gingles Restaurant

"Specialising in European and Russian food"

Shirley Bassey at City Hall

Mong Kok at night

For more photos from the 1960s, see:

• Mike Cussans's photos, and
• A tram ride through 1960s Hong Kong

Then browse through over 500 photos from the 60s in our galleries.

New buildings in the 1960s

Look how the 1960s building boom changed Hong Kong's skyline. This first view is from the 1950s:

At that time the buildings in Central were mostly 3-6 storeys high, built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The only "skyscrapers" in this photo are the HSBC and Bank of China buildings.

The second was taken in the mid-1960s. Can you spot the two bank buildings? By this time they were dwarfed by all the new construction.

To see the effect at street-level, here's how Queen's Building (in the foreground) and the original Prince's Building looked. Both were built within a few years of each other at the start of the twentieth century:

Both were knocked down at about the same time too. Queen's Building went first, replaced by the 27-storey Mandarin Hotel. In this photo from 1964, the new Hotel was just a year old:

That dark shape behind the hotel is the new Prince's Building under construction. It was finished the following year.

Here's how the two buildings looked in 1966. 

(Look to the right of Queen's Building in both photos, and you'll see another old building disappearing. The St. George's Building was about to be re-developed.)

The changing skyline even made the international news in this Pathé film clip (if you can't see the video or the map below, please view the web version of this page):

Here are all those new buildings from the 1960s shown on a map:

The map is live - you can zoom in, change layers, click a marker to see the building's name, etc. Or if you prefer, you can see the new buildings shown as a list. (Both the map and the list are a work in progress, so please add a page for any buildings we've missed.)

Thank you to everyone who has contributed the all facts and photos above.

If you have any favourite photos or memories of 1960s Hong Kong you can add, we'd love to see them. Here's how to upload a photo, and for any memories or stories please leave a comment below. Longer memoirs are also very welcome.

Regards, David