York Lo: Tsang Fook Piano (曾福琴行): A Century of Music in Hong Kong HF: York suggested that since the 105 year old firm has just announced its closure in March, maybe we could move the planned posting date of this article forward. Happy to oblige. Left: Front page ad for Tsang Fook Piano’s 50th anniversary and opening of North Point […]
» Read more
IDJ has sent a newspaper article from 1934 about the laying of a second fresh water pipe from Kowloon under Hong Kong harbour to Central. As with the first pipe the second was being installed to bring water supplies from the Shing Mun reservoir to Hong Kong Island and was to be undertaken by the Public Works Department, Hong Kong. […]
» Read more
“Long before the age of cash boxes and the Octopus card, Hong Kong’s buses and trams had conductors who would collect fares. China Motor Bus (CMB) vehicles also had a gateman to supervise passengers boarding and leaving the bus. But by the mid-1970s, both CMB and Kowloon Motor Bus (KMB) were running one-man buses, with a cash box next to […]
» Read more
Newsletter 8 included a very short article on The Shiu Wing Steel company, the only steel rolling mill currently operating in Hong Kong, located at Tap Shek Kok, Tuen Mun. As of 18th January 2021 this claim would appear to be still true. The mill is capable of producing 700,000 tonnes per year of high-grade reinforcing bars for local and […]
» Read more
York Lo: King of Entertainment: Wong Kow (黃球) and his Mayflower (五月花) group of restaurants and nightclubs Left: Wong Kow; Right: Matchbox for the Mayflower Restaurant group in the 1960s which list the phone numbers for all four of its restaurants and Oriental Ballroom. Wong Kow (1921-2017) was a major figure in the HK restaurant and entertainment industry in the […]
» Read more
Elizabeth Ride has sent BAAG Report KWIZ #77, dated 15th December 1944, and noted earlier: After KWIZ #4, the Naval section is not included in the AWM papers, and does not appear again until KWIZ #66, and then in a slightly different format. The image shown on the Home Page and below is of the Japanese oil transport ship Sanko […]
» Read more
Amelia Allsop, Collections and Research Manager at The Hong Kong Heritage Project has kindly sent this extract from the quarterly Newsletter Past & Present Issue 13. Part of the Newsletter is about The Peninsula Hotel, which started life as an up-market transport hotel serving passengers arriving both by railway and ship. The HK Industrial History connection? Jock Inglis was General Manager of […]
» Read more
York Lo: International Restaurant & Nightclub Holdings (國際酒樓夜總會置業 Earlier in the group, we have covered Ruby and Oceania Hawaii, two publicly listed restaurant groups from the 1970s and 1980s which had since faded into history. Another major listed restaurant group from the same era was International Restaurant & Nightclub Holdings (hereafter referred to as “IRN Holdings” to differentiate it from […]
» Read more
HF: IDJ has very kindly upgraded two of the photographs and the map included in the following article. In 1977 (?) the Water Supplies Department published a report publicizing the construction of Plover Cove reservoir which had been officially opened in January 1969, though the height of the dams was subsequently raised, this being completed in 1973. Two stages are […]
» Read more
HF: If you visit Yau Ma Tei Wholesale Fruit Market during the day you may well think it’s closed, ready to be fenced off and facing imminent demolition. However, piled boxes of fruit on the surrounding streets and inside locked wire cages within indicate there’s life in the old place yet. If you want to see the market fully functioning […]
» Read more