Tsan Yung Mansions [1963- ]

Just around the corner from us is this building. It’s quite handsome, at least, by HK Standards, and it’s called Tsan Yung Mansion.

Tsan Yung Mansion.jpg, by Angus Hardern

The name “Mansion” immediately dates it’s construction - it was built in 1963. Virtually all flats slightly larger than usual (by HK standards) built in the 60’s are called ‘Mansions’.
 
The first floor is surrounded by lattice brickwork which conceals a car park. The car park extends out into an open space behind the building.
 
There are 72 apartments - and well over 100 car park spaces.
 
This would have been a very unusual feature at the time it was built, because so few people in those days owned and ran cars. Even now very few folks here own cars compared with other cities.
 
The reason for this unusually high number of cars can be explained by this logo that still can be seen to this day at one end of the building:

Tsan Yung Mansions Logo2.JPG, by Angus Hardern

 
This was the Chinese name of a very famous taxi company that operated in Kowloon. The company built Tsan Yung Mansions (named after the company’s founder) to accommodate not just the founding family, but the HQ of their taxi company on the ground floor and parking for their fleet of 170 cabs on the first floor.
 
Running a taxi company during the 1960’s could be a tiresome affair. There were strikes by the drivers, often apparently politically motivated, and, of course, the riots in 1967.
 
So, in the early 1970’s the company closed its taxi business and instead concentrated on a rather more lucrative business - property development. (Sound familiar?)
 
At about the same time, an old established HK Trading Company, A.S.Watson,(now owned by Hutchinson), decided it was an opportune moment to open a supermarket chain and started to look round for suitable premises. They needed premises with plenty of retail space on the ground floor and hopefully, with additional space for their clients to park their cars close by.

Tsan Yung Mansion Parking Entrance.JPG, by Angus Hardern

They decided to call it, “Park’n Shop” and this likely is one of the very first they opened, right here at 70 Waterloo Road:
 
Of course, it’s now called “Fusion” (Same outfit, different name) but everyone round here still refers to it as “Park’n Shop”.

It's possible another outfit occupied the Ground and First Floor between the Taxi Company closing - if anyone can tell contribute any more about Tsan Yung Mansions in the early-mid 1970's please feel free to do so!