ARP Portal K???, Gascoigne Road [????- ]

Dear Mr B,

Despite most of the piece of rock had been chopped away in the past few decades, I have an impression that the portal is still there and is a bit closer to the commercial building to the North.  I'll try to have a walk by later this week to confirm.

T

Hi T, you're right that it can still be seen today - Moddsey mentioned the current state of the portal in his comment to the Harrison Forman photos. He also sent in these photos of the area in the 1950s, and the bricked-up portal today:

A question for you - just to the right of the portal in the Forman photos are some large chinese characters written on the rocks. Any idea what they would be? Something related to the ARP portal? Or just an advertisement?

Regards, MrB

Dear Mr B,

All the characters are being written right to left, the traditional way.  I could make out of the phrase Guangzhou at the top, and Prince Edward Road by the left, both in smaller character size.  The might be more than three bigger characters under Guangzhou, but the two visible ones doesn't make any sense.  If only the right most one had not been cropped we would have more information.

Most likely it is some sort of an advertisement or a pointer of something to Prince Edward Road.  Guangzhou probably means whatever it is showing there originated in Guangzhou.

My 2 cents.

T

I believe there are 5 big characters, reading from right to left: Bo (guessing: Treasure) Sing (flourish) Jump (needle) Choi (wealth) Po (word invisible: shop).  It advertised a shop common in the old days that handles or looks after customers' wealth and money, I think.

OldTimer

Hi there,

I hope the Milwaukee University wouldn't mind me capturing these two excerpts just to illustrate a little bit more about the charactors.  The two screen captures here are only using the original resolution of the Forman photos.

As for the first one Guangzhou is visible on top of the three bigger characters.  But the Prince Edward Road by the left is not quite visible here.  Also note the right most charactor of the bigger one is not recognizable.  The middle one is 盛 where the left one seems to be 斜   

This is captured from another photo which clearly shows Guangzhou (廣州), X盛斜 and Prince Edward Road (太子道)。 I have done some googling using 盛斜 +廣州 but nothing definite came up.   Just more confusion.

My 2 cents.

T

Hi tngan, the latest and enlarged photo proves my wild guess was way off.   The advertisement was put up there long time ago so one wonders if the business under the same name exists today.

OldTimer

Dear Mr B,

The newer [graffitti] in Moddsey's photo was sort of a plumber's Ad with contact phone number.  The Ad also emphysized on they could do it without scaffoldings.  That only means they most likely were doing it with strong abrasive and/or corrosive liquid to flush down the tubings, like caustic soda or some acids.

T

This ARP Portal is situated on the southern end of Cliff Road and is connected to the portal on Gascoigne Road.

The ARP Portals at Gascoigne Road and Cliff Road (off Public Square St) commenced construction in October 1940.