East Point (Hong Kong)

View across Causeway Bay to East Point (painting, 1846)

The East Point Center bears the place name, which is otherwise no longer in use

Map of Hong Kong (1860), East Point drawn in

East Point ( Chinese 東角 / 东角 , Pinyin Dōngjiǎo , Jyutping Dong ¹ gok ³ ) was a cape on the north coast of Hong Kong Island . It separated the bays of Wan Chai and Causeway Bay , but is completely surrounded by land after they have been filled in. The place is now part of Causeway Bay and the name East Point is no longer in use.

East Point was the easternmost part of Victoria City and protruded into Victoria Harbor at Kellett Island . The Jardine Matheson bought several plots of land to build on warehouses and other buildings. The Noonday Gun operated by the Jardines is still based in East Point to this day. The East Point Road ( 東角道 / 东角道 ) and the business building Eastpoint Center ( 東角中心 / 东角中心 ) bear witness to the site of the former Cape.

history

From the 1870s, the subsidiary of Jardine Matheson ( 怡和洋行 formerly 渣甸洋行 ) ran a sugar factory , the China Sugar Refinery ( 中華火車糖局 / 中华火车糖局 ), on today's Sugar Street ( 糖街 ). In addition to refining cane sugar from Java , the Philippines and the Straits Settlements , the factory also produced rum . At the beginning of the 20th century, the sugar factory closed because it could not compete with its competitors.

The entrepreneur and opium dealer Lee Hysan ( 利希慎 , Lì Xīshèn , Jyutping Lei ⁶ Hei ¹ san ⁶ ) bought East Point Hill or Jardine's Hill , a hill bordering the Cape, in 1923, and built an amusement park on it. This gave the hill the name Lee Garden ( 利園 / 利园 , Lìyuán , Jyutping Lei ⁶ jyun ⁴ ), which is preserved today in the name of Lee Garden Road ( 利園山道 / 利园山道 ). In 1953, the Lee family leveled the hill and sold some land to investors who were building houses. The Hennessy Center ( 興利中心 / 兴利中心 ), today Hysan Place ( 希慎廣場 / 希慎廣場 ), was built in the northern part of East Point Hill , and the Lee office building in the southern part on Hysan Avenue ( 希慎道 ) Garden One , formerly Manulife Plaza ( 宏利保險大廈 / 宏利保险大厦 ).

Land reclamation

East Point has been enclosed by new land through various projects. After the Jardines enlarged the cape in the 19th century, the bay of Wan Chai was filled in in the Praya East Reclamation Scheme in the 1920s and the cape was integrated into the new coastline from the west. For the construction of Victoria Park , which opened in 1952, the bay of Causeway Bay was filled in to the east , except for a canal, which was then also filled in for the construction of Gloucester Road . Around 1970 the area north of East Point to Kellett Island was filled in for the construction of the Cross Harbor Tunnel .

Web links

Gwulo: East Point - Jardine Matheson . Historical photos.
Lands Department: Reclamation & Development in Hong Kong (JPEG, 7 MB). Historical history of land reclamation projects.

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Jason Wordie: Streets: Exploring Hong Kong Island . Hong Kong University Press, Aberdeen, Hong Kong May 2002, pp. 141-153 .
↑ YUAN, Huaqi; LEE Wing Cheung, Alistair; ALLARAKHIA, Chhote-Mohsin N .: Urban Redevelopment in a Capitalist Society: Analysis, Evaluation, and Implications - A Case Study of Causeway Bay in Hong Kong . Ed .: University of Hong Kong. June 1985, p. 32-35 ( PDF ).

22.28039 114.184602Coordinates: 22 ° 16 '49.4 " N , 114 ° 11' 4.6" E

[wordie-1] A ^b Jason Wordie: Streets: Exploring Hong Kong Island . Hong Kong University Press, Aberdeen, Hong Kong May 2002, pp. 141-153 .

[study-2] YUAN, Huaqi; LEE Wing Cheung, Alistair; ALLARAKHIA, Chhote-Mohsin N .: Urban Redevelopment in a Capitalist Society: Analysis, Evaluation, and Implications - A Case Study of Causeway Bay in Hong Kong . Ed .: University of Hong Kong. June 1985, p. 32-35 ( PDF ).