Terraced building on Nathan Rd between Mody & Carnarvon Roads [1909-c.1957]

Submitted by David on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 14:00
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
(Day & Month are approximate.)
Date closed / demolished
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)

This appears in several old photos of Nathan Road. I don't know the building's name, so for now we'll make do with the mouthful above.

There are several other similar buildings along Nathan Road. Some identifying features for this one:

  • The roof line has a large gable at each end, and two smaller gables between.
  • The columns on the front of the building are in the pattern 1-1-2-1-2-1-1
  • The road is on a slight slope here. If you look at the line between ground & first floors, you'll see it does a step up half way along.
Later place(s) at this location
Mirador Mansion [1959- ]

Photos that show this Place

1907 Tsim Sha Tsui (East of Nathan Road)
1908
1910s
1920s Nathan Road
1925
See more photos of this place

Comments

I would tentatively put forward the hypothesis that the buildings were called....

David's Buildings. 

These buildings were located on Nathan Road, are 3 houses in number and composed of 6 flats each (3 'outside flats' and 3 'inside flats' and all uniform with ground floor, first floor and top floor). It included Nos. 56 and 58.

There was a series of correspondences between the Kowloon Resident's Association and the Government in early 1921 about the unjust rise in rent for houses in the said buildings. Fellow gwulo readers please have a look at the back and forth correspondence on columns 2 and 3 of page 8 of the China Mail 22nd April 1921 which furnishes further details. 

Due to the gobbledegook way the newspaper images have been digitised, the true page 8 is actually 'page 4' of 10

Source: The China Mail, page 8, 22nd April 1921

Also: The Hong Kong Telegraph, page 4, 22nd April 1921

If I am wrong then David's Buildings might be across Mody Road and where the current Holiday Inn Golden Mile is (No. 50 Nathan Road)

The captioned building is on K. I. L. No. 609.

Mention is made in the 1907 Report on Public Works that work had commenced in the construction of houses and shops on the lot. The Report for 1909 confirms that work had been completed on 6 European houses. So far, no name for the building as yet.

The demolition date would of course be prior to the construction of Mirador Mansion.