1961-09-02 — Page 11

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✅THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1961. W

RACKETS-they are fast

I have lived in this area for a little over two years, and in this short space of time, I have seen it change in shape and size. With few ex- coptions, the changes have not been for the better. At least, not so far us looks are concerned.

The building boom has hit this section of Kowloon to nuch on extent that the nuise of plic- driving has become its theme tune. Nothing like, "Love is a Many-Splendoured

Thing.....

and so forthf". Rather nervo- wrecking, actually. Still, it is all part and porcel of a city growing up. It's a healthy sho

Tsimshatsui can boost of seven modern hotels, and

at least two more are about ta appear in the near future. Here tourists do most of their shopping. This is, to many of them, Hong- kong.

This child of commerce is fust growing into a horrid monster.

Conalder Nathan-rond, a name

which every tourist learns and retdom forgets,

Verandahs take away that shoeboxy look. Why can't more of our new buildings hava them?

Why con't more of our buildings look like those? The two new hotols on Nathan-road.

destroying the charm of Kowloon

Where Is that picturesque and WITH TOWN PLANNING IN THE NEWS

rosy shopping arende? It's gonel But, you say, I had to go! And, although reluctantly, I

agree.

Novertheless, why isn't thero TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT IS HAPPENING

something, with more modern and practical lines, to tako fa place?

The answer to this IN probably found in the landlords" slogan, "Every square inch is worth a gold bar!" Personally, I find this quito irrelevant. But then, I'm no businessman,

The two new hotels at the bottom of Nathan-road aco undoubtedly a tremendous asset to the area. They are handsome, as modern as the best anywhers In the world. We don't really know what the sityscraper

occupying the site of the former and most pleturesque Chung- king Arcade is going to look like. It's anybody's gues you're superstitious, keep your

Ongers crossed.

Other recently completed buildings, a bit further up the road, looked quite pré- sentable when they first re- vealed themselves to the awe-struck passer-by-alry, with nice, wide verandahs. Yes, from the outside, they looked

rother attractive

and dignified.

Today, they are ugly, shoebox- Ulke structures, mout of them displaying a messy mass of

washing, from shools to baby's diapers.

+

That permit

Page

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HARBOUR The old and the new. A classic example of the typo of

UGLY buildings, towering concrete mon-

sters, are mushrooming all over Kowloon. The City of Victoria has a Town Planning - Bourd... Is Kowloon a nèglected-child?

Fantastic rents are forcing three to four families into one apartment, and absence of proper population-distribution assisted by lack of building maintenance is fast turning the area into a giant slum.

Shop areas tire being sold for, half-a- million to nine-hundred thousand dollars rents along Nathan-road, for small shop spaces, reach the $20,000 figure

per month! All this is ruining Kowloon, choking business, scaring tourists away! Now come with me to Tsimshatsui...

by Don Carlos

building that is mushrooming up along Nathon-road.

Shopkeepers aro forced to 1 personally experienced, glad to pay for it!" Finc, she resort to extremely high pres something similar about a year, sald. But she was still not very suro salesmanship, which can ago. Our apartment had to be enthusiastic. Someone must have either score the customer away, vacated, because the building, said, those words beforé.-- ar rush him into buying some- had been sold. for a couple of "It will cost you $10,000 thing He really doesn't want, hundred, thousand dollars. (I that's all And now I was

Prices can no longer be have been told that it ac kept at their lowest. The tually fetched half. a. mililout) result is obvious. Hong- kong is bound to lose its reputation as the "shop- pera' paradise."

With such high rents, a stag gering overhead, shopkeepers ara reaching a point of despair and frustration.

Very reasonable!

less enthusiastic than she was. At the very most, those tables and chairs and frames on the wall, in a less delspidated con- dition, wouldn't cost more than $400.001

A

I must have looked at about racket like the policy of

I say it is a racket! thirty-odd flats, furnished, un-

Mad landlord? furnished, little ones, big ones, asking for six months rent 41thy ones and not-so-filthy in advance. A racket like ones. And then (I couldn't be selling shop areas for leve my eyès!) I came upon a

There is no frustration very nice apartment, close to $800,000, or renting them equal to the feeling which Nathan-road, with telephone, at $15,000 per month! overcomes a family carning wired for TV and a decent lift, Not any worse, in fact, The landlady calmly inform- a total, say, of $1,500 or ed me that it was most reason than the bloke who pester- $2,000 when time comes able only $580. (She could ed me, about two years for flat hunting. Tourists have owners will smile at you,

made Tai-

have knocked me over with a ago, trying to dispose of The morning paper is usually chopstick!) I wanted to hug "very zara diamonds." and explain most tolerantly, shatsul a veritable gold mine. well stocked with ads like, her, I grabbed her hand, I sum Very cheap! "Sir

the verandaha And everybody wants to cash "Furnished..........three

Only ten bedrooms moned all the will power. at my were there so that we could in on the boom. However, the...cic.. Rent: $500 only" disposal not to shout (but I did), Hongkong dollars_a_piece! get the tenancy permit! Now or the syndicate who pais Don't be too surprised if that "wonderful! I'll take it! A sacrifice! And he had up a building and Bells shop advertiser has a hundred callers. She wasn't very enthusiastic, a dozen little bags full of we can go ahead.

spaces on the ground floor for Two friends of mine, who I suppose sho' was geiting bor- Yes, friends. Now

them! they go *LS much LAS $900,000 or have been flat-hunting for cd with similar reactions. ahead and do what they like. offers such areas to tenants at weeks, rushed to the address "Well," she said sweetly, "you Actually, I cannot help Maintenance of many of these $18,000 per month, forgets given. Very nice nat. Worth understand, I'm going away for thinking more highly of places is a foreign word. An one thing. While business is more than $800, at least.

twelve months, and I'm not go characters like this "dia- invention of the devil!

atll enjoying boom, com- Generous landlord? Mad ing to take all this furniture mond"-pedlar. After all, The result is obvious and petition is more than keen.

landlord? Neither! You with me, you understand...* obnoxious. These huge concrete In one block you find a dozen nee, the furniture must be Youll have to buy it, you under-, those multi-faceted stones

dozen tailors, a boxes become slums. There is Jewellers, a

"taken over" by the now stand...."

did look like diamònda, stums! dozen camera shops. Competi-

Quickly I surveyed the tables, no other word for it; In goes up. An impressive Clothes hanging

everywhere. tion can be a good thing, but,

mere $25,000. chairs, rugs and frames on the whereas all these· ortist's sketch is displayed to Outside, dripping mercilessly on liko everything clac, it can be

At an auction that furniture wall, and I was somewhat re- apartments look more like might fetch $5,000.... Heved. "That's all right! Pll be prison cells than homes... and overdone, with pathetic results.

corridors, and, it; they could; you would hanging in the lift.... very likely

cheongsams

Have you noticed how it works? I don't mean the wash ing, of course. I mean the fan- tustic change from verandahs to walls of window bars and cheap glass.... Very

A simple.

build-

camera-slinging

tourists

the public on the footpath or hanging from the scaffolding. It humble residents; inside, along shows a modem skyscrapers: passageways, There you see the wide veran dahs.

Now the building is Anished. The meaffolding is hurriedly re- moved. There i is for you lo behold. It surely looks like the artist's sketch you saw before. The nice verandahs, etc.

only

Designed?

The owners of the new build-

That's not all. Rubbish bins, ing apply for what they call

some of them lidless, decorato "lenancy permit." Until that

the entrances to the fints. There accomplished you connal move is no back exit, you see. You can in, although you may have paid and furniture. the surplus lot, anything up to $80,000 for your standing in the passageway, You Apartment; and although water, will see Brewood, stacked neat gus and electricity have been installed.

fts, exmpheds, chairs, and the like.

Now the inspectors hove looked round, have found the And that's not all. A building place suitable for humans to which was originally designed Hve 10. Yes, sir all is right. If you will parda the ex- Tenancy permit in signed, pression! for residential pur- storaped and delivered, Now poses, aside from the obvious what? Can you move in? Sorry! shop. spaces on the ground and mezzanine floors, la quickly One minute, please!

transformed into a conglomera- tion of workshops for

tailors, watch-repairers, dry cleaners, carpenters, shoomakers, caterers, and, belleve it or not, anything from Bible distribution centres to brothela! Oh, yes, movie studios loot

It's gone!

Like lightning, up pace the scaffolding. They had it there in the first place, then they took it down, and now it's up again. And now it is gone, this time for good. And so are the vernn- dahs! They have all been glossed and barred In. You're stuck with little hole or corner in o beehive or something like Alcatraz. You protest. The

This is what hai hoppaned to the Interior of a' new apartment, block ́in Tülmehätuul..

Lifts in such places are quite inadequate. They are small, room enough for about eight people, as thin as I. (Somehow they alwaya manage to hold up to

dozen, thin and fat),

Golden mile

Along Nathan-road there pre vocant shop spaces being offered for as much as $17,000 per , month (about S. 1,000). Places with hardly enough room to swing a dog-a little one,

An old Indian merchant used to have a shop in exactly the same pot, but his silk store occupied an area of more thas ten Umes the space which la being rented for $17,000

now

a month..

Marcover, ho had * hugo apartment over that huge shop, Ho was paying, for the lot, $500 month.... This was a little over two years ago. rough climate would make this

particular merchant's

Dreiece

former

$100,000 per month............

Nathan-road...the "Golden Mile! You, siri you can almost see gold bars lined up against the footpath...As the landlord sold to me, chuckling merrily, "Every Inch Is a gold-bar!"

30

young man from Cøy-: lon," who runs a féwellery shop, tells me his American ellents don't believe his salesgirl when she tells them shop spaces cost much. "My God! That's even higher than what they pay for a shop ort Fifth Avel" That's New York, you know!....

4.

In the got twelve' shonthe 1. have seen shope;în'one bulkling changa handa, not onge, but twice, or even threg Linson, a

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teannt. a

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