1950s Streetscene

Tue, 09/23/2014 - 20:53

On Flickr, tommybegood identifies it as "Shanghai Street @ Mongkok". Can anyone confirm?

The little car is a Fiat 500. That was launched in 1957, so the photo was taken in the late 50s, or early 60s.

Source: This image came from Flickr, see https://flickr.com/photo.gne?id=4230529965

Date picture taken
1957
Author(s)

Comments

Greetings.  This street looks wider than the Shanghai Street I visualize.  These are not poor men's cars so if true it would be close to TST or actually on HK island.  And the one-way traffic, my memory tells me Shanghai Street had 2-way traffic in early 1950s having Routes 4 and 12 buses some double-deckers but none shown here.  Regards, Peter 

The embroidery and wedding gown stores seen in the photo are common in Shanghai Street. But of course, they can be found in other places as well.

The photographer seemed to have taken the picture while on a rickshaw. I wonder if rickshaw went that far north (say, to Mongkok?), because I have the impression that rickshaws just went around TST, no further than Austin Road. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Hi There,

Some sections of the present day Shanghai Street is three lanes with something to spare (like the section south of Waterloo Road.

I have to admit it really takes some recognizable landmarks to pin point the location.  However decades ago some sections of Shanghai Street in Yaumati was really full of those 疋頭 stores as shown in the photos.  Present days many of similar stores are concentrated around Tai Nam Street toegether with leather material stores.

So far unable to find any present day stores with the store names shown in the photo.

T