Queen’s Pier pledge must be honoured
- Part of Hong Kong’s heritage and collective memory has to be reassembled at Central harbourfront site as promised years ago by the now city leader
The time is long past when the government should have reassembled Queen’s Pier and restored it to its rightful place on the Central harbourfront. This was the promise made by then development secretary, now chief executive, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor after it was removed to make way for the Central-Wan Chai Bypass. The plan was to place it between piers nine and 10 by 2013.
The parts of the dismantled pier have since been stored on Lantau Island and officials have now revealed that when it is finally reassembled it may not, after all, be in Central. That is a blow to a sustained campaign by conservationists, and many young people, to preserve part of the city’s heritage and collective memory. The pier was built in the 1950s on the site of one that had been there since 1925. It was used by governors and royalty when visiting Hong Kong. It also served as a public pier from 1954 to 2007 – a popular spot for social activities and cruising trips and, being close to Edinburgh Place, also for civic and political functions and wedding groups.
Not only did it find a place in collective memory, its demolition marked the coming out of a new breed of young protesters in Hong Kong, many rallied by mobile phone calls and messages to save a social landmark of their parents’ and grandparents’ times. There were sit-ins, protest songs and hunger strikes, clashes with police and arrests. It all took the government by surprise, but was nothing like the protests of 2019 sparked by the now-shelved extradition bill. It was, however, a taste of what was to come, with pleas for officials to listen to the people.
The pier was eventually determined to be a grade one monument worthy of preservation, but not at its original location. This was a direct response to the demonstrations, sparked six months earlier when demolition of the old nearby Star Ferry Pier began, though they were too late to save it. The bypass has been completed. No good reason has been advanced for not keeping the promise to return Queen’s Pier to the Central harbourfront. In the restoration, the role of Hong Kong’s youth in preserving the collective memory of previous generations and raising heritage consciousness is worth formal acknowledgement.