Causeway Bay typhoon shelter, 1979

Mon, 09/22/2014 - 19:29

Photo courtesy of Fred:

Victoria park and Kowloon, taken from the roof of the Plaza hotel.

Date picture taken
1979
Shows place(s)

Comments

Hi there,

In the lower left corner of the photo you should be able to see the old curvy flyover.  Now pay attention.  Slight to its right there is a grey/white structure running nearly parallen to the flyover.  That was what's left of a covered conveyer system for the Dairy Farm Ice House, which used to be located in the site of modern day Windsor House as well as the Hang Lung Centre. 

The conveyer system went underground close to the flyover and emerge again at the water front, where it would load the ice blocks into boats for delivery to clients.  If you pay a bit more attention to the shades a bit behind the flyover, you might be able to see a fuzzy ractangular shape there.  That's the end of the conveyor system.

For a certain period of time the top side of the covered conveyor system had been made into an elevelated walkway.  It was somehow being demolished in the 1980's or the 1990's, which I have already lost count of it.

My 2 cents,

T

Up until the 70's, there was actually a man made canal waterway running from the typhoon shelter all the way up to the Victoria Park entrance at Sugar St. It has since been covered up and turned into Gloucester Rd Flyover you see today. In fact, a large chuck of the land between Paterson St and Glouchester Rd Flyover was once part of the sea that made up the typhoon shelter.

Back then when Dairy Farm Ice House was still in operation, barges and cargo boats would go up the canal from typhoon shelter and moored next to the ice factory located at the Sugar St Victoria park entrance. From there, huge blocks of ice would be loaded onto the barge via the conveyer system. On the odd days, the neighbourhood would smell of ammonia used in ice making from the factory.

Bit by bit, part of the typhoon shelter and the entire canal waterway were covered up to make way for the never ending real estate developments and new roadways. The picture you see here was at the later stage of area development where the canal waterway and chunks of typhoon shelter were reclaimed and made into land.