Royal Interocean Lines' Interocean House, North Point [1957-????] | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Royal Interocean Lines' Interocean House, North Point [1957-????]

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Submitted by moddsey on Thu, 2019-07-18 00:57
Current condition: 
Demolished / No longer exists
Date Place completed: 
1957-01-01

Located at 191 Java Road, North Point. Interocean House built in 1957 and the North Point Reclamation are mentioned here

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Photos that show this place

1959
1960
1967

Comments

Submitted by Klaus on Fri, 2019-07-19 04:30.

More information here. In this publication they show the office building on page 5. Later (on page 17) it is reported that:

In June 1966, the office of the manager for Hong Kong and China moved into the brand new Prince's Building at the hub of the Hong Kong business centre. 

In 1991, K.Wah Centre opened at the same place.

Submitted by Theodor Strauss on Sat, 2021-06-19 19:09.

When Interocean House was built, the company, Royal Interocean Lines, had a special safe built into the wall of the building which contained: various papers of the company, schedules, employee lists and the house magazine called RIL Post.

I have been trying to find out what happened with that safe after the building was demolished.

The K. Wah Group purchased  RIL's building, but unfortunately all my emails to K. Wah remain unanswered.

Does anyone know??  The address was 191 Java Road, North Point.

Submitted by BHUI25044 on Sun, 2021-07-04 15:07.

There was a story in the 1960s that one of the RIL staff took advantage of a long public holiday, CNY or Easter?  toenter the building where, as he had access to the safe, he emptied the safe of its cash contents and fled immediately to Brazil. The theft was only discoveed three or four days later when the staff retuened to work. I could not comment on the vracity of the story but that is how it was told at the time.

Submitted by Theodor Strauss on Sun, 2021-07-04 17:33.

BHUI25044 thank you for your story, but that safe was an ordinary safe for keeping cash.

The safe or box which was built into a wall when the building was completed, is the safe I am loooking for. Surely when the building was demolished, they must have spotted that safe and opened it.  I also wonder why K.Wah do not reply to my emails; perhaps their staff nowadays has no idea what we are talking about.  I still hope that someone will remember.

Submitted by BHUI25044 on Mon, 2021-07-05 06:29.

Thank you for the response. So there is some truth in the story?

Submitted by wongm on Thu, 2021-11-25 11:54.

The safe built into the building wall sounds more like a 'time capsule'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule

Were time capsules common in Hong Kong? I found an example here from 1997.

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201203/28/P201203280485.htm