This is Causeway Bay. The picture taker was standing at Matheson street looking straight into Percival street. The blue color sign in Chinese said Percival Restaurant. The black and white sign in Chinese is for a book store. Actually when I was going to secondary school. The school gave me a list to pick up text books there. The tram tracks are leading to the tram depot and repair facility. To the left of the picture is Russell street.
This is just behind the tram car depot in Happy Valley not Wanchai .... I actually took the pic and lived in HK too!!
Guest
02-May-2017 18:05
Correction. It is a street picture of WANCHAI.
Guest
02-May-2017 17:59
It is not a picture of Happy Valley. Instead it is a picture of Wai Chai - you can tell from the shigns of the shops. I am a native Hong Kong so I know the city VERY well.
OnceUponATime
19-Mar-2013 06:48
I lived in that building on the left from end of '65 until the autumn of '67.
Each floor had two units or flats viewing from this side of the picture, there were five families sharing the five rooms of the flat my dad rented from his friend. Our room accommodated my family of four. But the flat accommodated 14 people. The stairs or entrance to this building was under the last white chinese character on the left of the horizontal white letterings and red background store sign.
Our room was right across from top of the the white letterings and light blue vertical store sign in the centre of this picture facing Percival. That taller sign was the Percival Restaurant. They have their own bakery and at least three times a day starting from 5 am the fresh bread and cake baking aroma filled the entire area where the picture encompasses.
The lower vertical white lettering but dark blue sign was Zonman book store at the ground level at the corner of a street off Percival which is not visible from the picture.
I used to stay up late on weekends or holidays whenever the next day did not have school and looked down to see the trams came through the tracks as seen on the foreground of the picture. That was a stop for passengers to get on or get off.
But it was the depot last stop get off for sure in front of the Percival Restaurant. There was a metal booth, half the size of a toilet stall width fitting just one person, right in front of the Percival Restaurant at the edge of the curb for a worker sitting there from after dinner till all the trams returned to the depot. He would switch the tracks to route the trams coming in off the Percival tracks which ran along to Happy Valley to the depot. The tracks went into these green gates, there were two such curved tracks on the lower edge of this picture which made loud noise when the trams turning (metal wheels grinding on the metal tracks) at such an obtuse angle especially late at night around mid-night.
There were 'tai pile dong' filled along the Russell St. Market (not in the picture but to the left). The big umbrellas are the stalls as well right in front of the white letterings and red background sign; with other food stands.
The Russell was a street market place with food stalls, fresh produce stalls, hot kitchen noodle and dinner stalls (wok and fire and all right in front of you that they cooked right in front of you), fish, eggs, clothings, ... on the street level. The shoppers would filled the entire street. That cars and delivery trucks seldom went in there unless it was absolutely necessary such as delivery of the goods and produces for the vendors.
The horizontal white letterings and red background sign was the noodle manufacturing factory on the gound level. The direction of that red and white lettings sign all the to the left and out of this picture was the market street Russell.
There might even be a kindergarten on the second level. I don't quite remember that now.
The center of this picture in fact was the intersection of four streets. Percival, Russell, Matheson, and the street has no name now on the map where the book store was. There were no tracks on Russell but on Matheson where the picture was taken facing Percival. And ends at Sharp St. E.
The trams depot occupied the entire block of Canal Road, Sharp St. E, Matheson and Russell.
That intersection belongs to at least three districts; Wanchai, Happy Valley or Causeway Bay.
Thank you Tom Jackson sharing this picture and brought me back to my childhood.
Guest
31-Jul-2010 09:09
I used to live here.
Guest
15-Apr-2008 16:17
This is where Time Sq. is now
Ron
08-Apr-2007 21:26
This area is the intersection of Russel St. and Percival St. where the tramcars turn in from Percival St. Russel St. before entering the tramcar depot. In fact, the entire has now been changed and the buildings in the picture have been replaced by new commercial complex in modern design. The depot has also been moved.
Antonio De Rosas
24-Aug-2006 09:09
Hi,
This actually still is in Causeway Bay. This market is right next to the Tram depot.
