Hong Kong photographer records the old shops falling prey to gentrification on one man’s daily commute through Western
Seeing the long-established small businesses he passed daily closing, Howard Bilton commissioned a book of photos of every shop along Queen’s Road West – a quirky Hong Kong time capsule
Hong Kong can count on so few constants that even the removal of a neon sign can cause quite a ruckus.
Last year, the dismantling of the 37-year-old cow sign outside Sammy’s Kitchen, a Hong Kong-style Western restaurant, became a cause célèbre for the protection of street heritage.
It also galvanised Howard Bilton into commissioning a book that documents every single old shop along Queen’s Road West, the quirky time capsule to the west of Central where the cow sign used to hang.
When I heard [the Sammy’s Kitchen cow] was being dismantled as an illegal structure, my brain exploded
“I drive along Queen’s Road West a lot because I work in Central and I live in Pok Fu Lam. Five years ago, I started to talk about getting large-scale photographs done of the shops there but I left it. Then, I noticed shops starting to disappear and replaced by coffee shops.