Everything tagged: old buildings

Old houses on Peking Road (Inland lot 416, see 1896 Kowloon map), probably numbers 1 to 9. They are just north of the Marine Police Station and last shown on the 1956 Kowloon map. Today the Peking Road Sitting Out Area, Kowloon Park Drive, and 1, Peking Road are there. The buildings were probably built around 1900*, and demolished around 1972, possibly standing till 1974. 

*update: 1914 (see comment below).

I grew up in Hong Kong, my family moved here in 1978.  We would often go to Wanchai.  As a boy, probably around the early 1980 I remembered seeing a rather large red brick building opposite the Hopewell Center, the building had been boarded shut but people still made a living there, I have a strong memory of elderly women separating the beans from bean sprouts using a metal hook attached to their thumbs Anyway.

I'm curious what the purpose of the building was.