Yau Ma Tei – Police Station ca. 1960
360-degree panoramic artwork developed from historical photos
Historical Hotspots:
The Second Yau Ma Tei Police Station
Completed in 1922, the Yau Ma Tei Police Station was a three-storey building characterised by neoclassicism, forming a V-shaped layout by its structure. As one of the oldest remaining police stations in the Kowloon Peninsula, its distinctive appearance made it a premium filming location for movies and TV dramas in Hong Kong. In 2009, the police station was declared as a Grade II historic building. In 2016, most of the services were transferred to the new Yau Ma Tei Police Station on Yau Cheung Road. Only the reporting centre was retained at the old station and its main complex has been refurbished as the new office of the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau.
Dating back to 1973, the “Black Exhibition Room” was launched at Yau Ma Tei Police Station to display over a hundred weapons and criminal tools seized by the police. The exhibits included blades and knives, burglary tools, counterfeit money, drugs, etc. These items were expected to let police officers learn about the criminal behaviour and thinking. In general, the room was not open to the public, yet some neighbourhood groups in the community and overseas individuals interested in criminology were invited for visits.
Photo courtesy of Police Museum, Hong Kong Police Force
Kwong Ming Theatre and New Tai Yat Theatre
Tai Yat Theatre opened for business in 1921 and was split into two cinemas, New Tai Yat Theatre and Kwong Ming Theatre, in the 1930s. As both cinemas were operated by the same owner, they were located adjacent to each other with similar facilities and decorations. Also, they were connected from the hall and offered 700 seats for the audience respectively. They both specialised in screening Cantonese movies, but New Tai Yat Theatre also screened western productions. Both cinemas were closed and demolished in 1964 due to urban redevelopment projects by the government. The site is now redeveloped as the Yau Ma Tei Jockey Club Specialist Clinic.
Film copy was expensive in the 1950s and 1960s, such that the cinemas used to share one set of copies with another adjacent cinemas to play the same film. As a result, “Film Racing” emerged as an important task within the industry. In general, a 90-minute-long film was partitioned into 5 to 9 reels. When one cinema finished playing a reel, a deliveryman had to race the film copy from one cinema to another by bike or motorbike during the intervals of screening time between the two cinemas. If there was any delay, a notice that read “The next reel has yet to arrive, please wait for a moment” would be projected onto the screen. This inevitably spoiled the audience’s mood.
Photo courtesy of Mr. Hui Yat Tung, David
Animation:
In the 1960s, Yau Ma Tei Police Station was situated in close proximity to the waterfront with an abundance of piers nearby, including the one exclusively used by the government. Crowds of deliverymen were often seen roaming and transporting goods around the piers, the wholesale fruit market, and warehouses nearby.