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Sat, 01/30/2021 - 20:31

A photograph of the Matsubara Hotel

Date picture taken
1941 (year is approximate)

Comments

When Forman took this photo in 1940/41, the Gloucester Hotel was the Gloucester Hotel - it didn't get its named changed to the Matsubara Hotel until after the Japanese victory in December 1941.

If you zoom in on the linked version of this photo you can see the English name 'Matsubara Hotel' on the sign that sticks out into the street above the car. The letters are clearer on a second photo that Forman took of the hotel: https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agsphoto/id/16244/re…

Before the Japanese Occupation, the Matsubara Hotel was located on Ice House Street. The jury lists from the 1930s also give references to the Hotel being on Ice House Street.

In the 1910s and 1920s I have seen other references of the Hotel being located on Connaught Road Central and Queen’s Road Central respectively.

In Emily Hahn’s “China to Me”, the author mentions that upon arrival in Hong Kong she stayed in a hostelry “on a steeply sloping street” next to the Matsubara Hotel. The latter establishment was “reserved for Japanese people”.