No. 202 Queen's Road East [????- ] | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

No. 202 Queen's Road East [????- ]

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Submitted by ilan.ozer on Sat, 2012-09-01 21:56

I grew up in Hong Kong, my family moved here in 1978.  We would often go to Wanchai.  As a boy, probably around the early 1980 I remembered seeing a rather large red brick building opposite the Hopewell Center, the building had been boarded shut but people still made a living there, I have a strong memory of elderly women separating the beans from bean sprouts using a metal hook attached to their thumbs Anyway.

I'm curious what the purpose of the building was.

I've tried to do some research on this subject, the building was located at No. 202 Queen's Road East, it is now QRE Plaza. On 15.5.1981, planning permission under Application No. H5/64P for a proposed office building was granted by the Town Planning Board (TPB) and in 1994, the  site was rezoned from “R(A)” to “O”.  In 1999, building plans for the office development were first approved.  Before the QRE Plaza was built it was an open air carpark for a very long time.

Hope someone here can help me identify the building.

Thanks,

Ilan

Tags: 
old buildings
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Comments

Submitted by C on Mon, 2012-09-03 09:48.

Hi Ilan,

I remember that there was also a red brick building on the site of the present Wu Chung House next to Hopewell Centre.  According to this web page in Chinese, it was used as quarters for inspectors of the Sanitory Board (which became the Urban Council in 1936) and storage.  There was also an interesting lane -- Tik Loong Lane -- nearby.

My memory is a little vague regarding the red brick building opposite to Hopewell Centre.  I only remember tenement buildings (tong lau), one of which had the sign of Hopewell on one of the pillars supporting the building.  This led me to believe that Hopewell's headquarters was there for a period of time.