4-7-52- Harbour from ferry- Hong Kong

I'd say that's Causeway Bay with Kellett Island to the left.
Holt's Wharf and the Peninsula across the harbour.

That's the background identified. Does anyone recognise the building in the foreground?

Regards, David

Looking at other photos it's west of the Tiger Balm Gardens, and the hillside is on the right, so i think it's over the hill. I haven't found a good photo of that area.

Hello David,

This rare picture was very likely taken from the southern end of the second or third buildings of the Belilios Convalescent Hospital toward the Victoria Harbour. I just uploded to the Images depository of this website a picture of the Eatern Hospital Road in the 1930's showing the Belilios Convalescent Hospital at the background. This hospital was demolished between 1952 and 1954 to make way for the present Fontana Gardens, the Buddhist Wong Fong Ling Middle School and the Sir Kadoorie Secondary School. Most of the debris from this site were used to reclaim the piece of land forming the current Victoria Park. 

With regards,

Tai Wong

Hi Tai Wong,

That looks like the right location, thank you!.

Something strange is that the building in the photo above doesn't look like the buildings in your 1930s photo. The building in this photo has a flat roof and doesn't seem as long as the 1930s buildings:

1930s Buildings on Eastern Hospital Road, by Moddsey

If you zoom in on this 1947 photo, the buildings look more like the flat-roof building shown above:

File2303.jpg, by Jim Watkins

So is it possible that the Belilios Convalescent Hospital site was re-developed in the 1930s, say, before being demolished in the 1950s?

Regards, David

From my untrained eye it seems that the photo was taken from the hill with that round-looking wall, with the three white houses on its northwest down the slope.  But on David's 1920s comparison image on http://gwulo.com/atom/20994 it looks like the round wall was just a round path.  Were there any refurbishments or new structures built between the dates of both photos?

breskvar

There's a picture of a spitfire flying over Causeway Bay in 1958 on the Chigchic site,
http://www.chingchic.com/chics-aviation-1954--1960.html
So I makes me think that the hospital was demolished earlier, as David said, and 3 new flat-roofed buildings were there until at least 1958.
Alun

Hello David,

In the government publication Hong Kong 1958 : A Review of 1957 there was a picture of the farewell ceremony for Sir Alexander and Lady Grantham at the Hong Kong Stadium. On its background the 3 buildings of the Belilios Convalescent Hospital were clearly shown from the west side. The top white building matched the white flat-roof building in the 1947 and 1952 pictures. The 9.2 MB size of this1957 picture stopped me from uploading it to the Gwulo.com site.

There is a 1956 RAF oblique aerial photo showing the Causeway Bay including those 3 buildings in the  Hong Kong1957 publication. Is there a way I can send these two pictures to you ? 

With regards

Tai Wong

These will be good to see. If you have easy access to an image editor and can shrink the filesize (either shrink the size of the image or just crop out the section that shows the buildings), please try halving the size and uploading again. Or if you aren't sure how to do that please send me the files and I'll adjust them.

I think the files are too big for my email account, so best to use a service like http://www.filemail.com/ to send them.

Regards, David

Helo David,

I cropped the two pictures and inserted them here. The three buildings were in these two pictures.

With regards,

Tai Wong