HK Telephone Building / Telephone House, Nathan Road [c.1948-c.1976]

Submitted by David on Sun, 01/18/2009 - 19:10
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)
Date closed / demolished
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)

This was described as Kowloon's 'first skyscraper', all of 12 storeys high! It certainly stands out in photos from the 1950s.

It stood at the junction of Cameron & Nathan Roads, on the northeast corner.

Later place(s) at this location
HSBC Building Tsim Sha Tsui [c.1978- ]

Tags

Photos that show this Place

Telephone Building - Construction begins
1948
1948
1940s HK Telephone Building
1949
See more photos of this place

Comments

I've set the completion date to the end of 1948:

  • The newspaper clipping from 2 Feb 1948 reported that the first piles would be driven the same week, and that the building would be completed within one year.
  • It appears in a photo from Flickr dated 1948.

But... it could just as easily be 1949. I ran a search through the 1948/9 newspapers for 'telephone', but only found the clipping shown above. Can anyone else confirm the completion date?

Perhaps it was completed in 1949, here's why---

In the September-October issue of the HK and Far East Builder periodical (Vol 8, No. 1, available in HKU Library) shows an article of this building on pp. 9-11. 

It shouldn't have taken so long for the journal to run an article on the building if it had been completed a year earlier?

The Telephone Building appears to have been toward the middle of the block.  Perhaps we could move the marker, so that the building at the intersection, that stands out in this 1920s postcard, can be properly located.

Nathan Road