Street scene from tram

Andrew Suddaby
Sun, 10/04/2015 - 02:18
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Street scene from tram

Can anyone identify this part of the tram route - possibly Shau Kei Wan?  No, it was Hennessy Road in Wan Chai .  Please see the correspondence below - a good piece of combined detective work from tiny clues!

Date picture taken
25 Jul 1981
Author(s)
Andrew Suddaby
Gallery
1981 Andrew Suddaby's photos

Comments

I was trying to search the name of the ear/throat/nose doctor with his sign on the centre right of the photo and can't find anything in a Google search.  Most likely retired now, but there should be some way to look up the information of old registered doctors in Hong Kong, and possibly unearth the address at which he operated from. 

Any doctors here on this site, or someone who knows the government registries for such things?

breskvar

Hi there,

This may as well be Wanchai, right opposite Tin Lok Lane on east bound Hennessy Road.  The location of the traffic light seem to match the photo though. 

Unable to have solid proof now but if you use the Street View link and tilt upwards you should be able to see a big faded sign with the same name 岑子明 up there.  That person would seem to be a Chinese Herbalist though.

I would try to take a look when I next walk by and see if the faded sign is still there.  Street view is a few years old already.

T

Wow T how is it at all possible that you are able to pinpoint the location?  What was the hook that brought you to Henessy Road.  It is highly unlikely that someone with the same name operated a clinic in the same industry, but somewhere else on the same tram route.

breskvar

Hi T

I no longer have the negatives so cannot place the images in a chronological sequence but they were taken fairly close together from the tram on the same journey.  The prints were stuck in our holiday diary and the caption against this one is 'Shops in one of the smarter areas'.  I believe that the Quarry Bay area had just been re-developed in 1981 and I suggest that Quarry Bay or the area between there and Shau Kei Wan is a likely location.  The photograph which  is now correctly identified as being 'Kings Road. Quarry Bay Shops from Tram' was definitely in the same sequence and I am therefore strongly in favour of this one too being somewhere in Quarry Bay -  maybe a bit closer to Shau Kei Wan. On the same page in our diary I stuck the photograph 'Shau Kei Wan stalls from tram' and captioned it 'Shau Kei Wan' whichmay be significant.  I don't think the one with the large Omega sign was in Wan Chai more likely Quarry Bay.

I hope that this is of some help. Andrew  

Hi there,

What I have suggested was pretty vague.  Please see this marked up file.  Together with this Street View photo showing the faded signage.

It's a game of finding the similarity and odds between the photo and the modern day street view (dated 2011).  The appearance of the store fronts are different as the decoration of the modern day shops in 2011 are nothing like the older photo.

I have to admit, there were buildings of the same age of those shown in Wanchai.  Further investigation is needed for this one.

T

Hi there,

What do you think about this screen capture from Phil's blog?  Does that white extended signage of the shop by the right hand side look similar to the shoe store displayed above?  It is from another angle and the capture was from a movie distributed in 1987.   The store front in the screen capture is not a shoe store, but the signage looked very much alike.

Anyway, still no solid proof.

On the other hand, it would seem there had been some change of regulations regarding signages some time ago as the 2011 Street View did not show these decorations anymore.  I could not recall when did the new rules started.

T

Hello T and Breskvar,

I must admit to getting a bit lost in this one but there does seem to be some simularity between parts of my old photograph and the recent ones that you have added.  That doorway looks like a pretty good match.  If you are satisfied with it I'll go along with your research findings and happily change the title of my image.  As I have previously written, photographs from moving trams, trains or whatever are very difficult to pinpoint at the time. Just let me know what to call it!  Well done. Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Just keep it as it is for the time being.  If only Phil's screen capture could show if Po Shing Watch Co Ltd had been captured it would be definite.  However like I said, my suggestion are pretty vague.

This is the fun of playing guessing over old photos.  :-)

T

I believe Thomas has nailed it. Here is the screen capture he was referring to so you can make a better comparison.

VTS_01_1.VOB_001083947.jpg
VTS_01_1.VOB_001083947.jpg, by Philk

Notice the 7 small signboards that hang down in the upper part of Andrew's picture (above the main Omega neon sign), if you look closely at the film still you can make them out on the film still on the right hand side, level with the top of the tram, below and to the right of the large L-shaped green sign with red writing.

According to 1980 年香港年鑑 p1145, the address of the watch company 寶城錶行 was 361 Hennessey road. Google map shows today it is a store called Safegear. It is west of the famous Hennessey-Marsh junction where the Tung Tak Pawn Shop was located. The pawn shop was recently demolished. It had the classic 騎樓 ke-lau architecture. Unfortunately it is just out of the picture. Apparantly the traffic light has moved eastward by 2 store fronts.