A good clue for dating this photo lies near its bottom right corner where a building is cut off by the right edge of the photo. It’s 1 Chatham Path. With two temporary matsheds and only the shell of the house it was obviously being built when the photo was taken.
Here’s another photo showing more of the construction site.
It appeared in the book “Picturesque Hong Kong”, entitled “View from the Peak looking East”. The blurb accompanying the photo stated that it was taken at “the beginning of 1924”. It seems reasonable to conclude that Moddsey’s photo was taken a short time later, probably only a month or two, unless construction was delayed. That means Moddsey’s photo was probably taken in mid-1924.
Now take a look at Tsim Sha Tsui. Unfortunately it’s very blurred, but no matter how hard I look I can’t see the YMCA building. That means its predecessor was still there or the YMCA was in the early stages of construction. The YMCA was built sometime between January 1924 (date on Foundation Stone) and November 1925 (opened for business), so would only have become visible from Hong Kong Island towards the end of this period – which corroborates the 1924 date.
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Cenotaph is present but no…
Quick glance, the Cenotaph is present but no Peninsula Hotel...so the date would be between 1923-1927. Can we narrow it further?
1924 I reckon
A good clue for dating this photo lies near its bottom right corner where a building is cut off by the right edge of the photo. It’s 1 Chatham Path. With two temporary matsheds and only the shell of the house it was obviously being built when the photo was taken.
Here’s another photo showing more of the construction site.
The shell of the house is shorter in this pic than in Moddsey’s, so this pic was the earlier of the two. It’s an extract from this larger photo.
It appeared in the book “Picturesque Hong Kong”, entitled “View from the Peak looking East”. The blurb accompanying the photo stated that it was taken at “the beginning of 1924”. It seems reasonable to conclude that Moddsey’s photo was taken a short time later, probably only a month or two, unless construction was delayed. That means Moddsey’s photo was probably taken in mid-1924.
Now take a look at Tsim Sha Tsui. Unfortunately it’s very blurred, but no matter how hard I look I can’t see the YMCA building. That means its predecessor was still there or the YMCA was in the early stages of construction. The YMCA was built sometime between January 1924 (date on Foundation Stone) and November 1925 (opened for business), so would only have become visible from Hong Kong Island towards the end of this period – which corroborates the 1924 date.