From bastion of working-class Hong Kong to art-house magnet for film lovers, how Six Streets in Yau Ma Tei renewed itself
Tenements crammed with refugees from communist China, where children played on the streets while their parents assembled plastic flowers, made way for Prosperous Garden housing estate, including Broadway Cinematheque
Yau Ma Tei is one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most diverse neighbourhoods – and in a series of stories we explore different facets of its history.
As daylight recedes into murky dusk, the lonely mating cry of the Asian koel echoes between the towers of Prosperous Gardens. Children run through the courtyard, weaving between film-goers making their way to the Broadway Cinematheque, which for a time was Hong Kong’s only art house cinema.
It is the kind of scene that would have pleased Hong Kong’s 1970s-era town planners, who decided that jam-packed Yau Ma Tei needed a facelift. When the government introduced plans for Prosperous Garden in 1985, it noted that the redevelopment scheme’s 1,600 flats would occupy just 20 per cent of the space in Yau Ma Tei’s so-called Six Streets, leaving the rest for public open space.
Hong Kong district history: Yau Ma Tei, frenetic 24/7 urban centre that is unlike anywhere else in the city
The Six Streets (Public Square Street, Ching Ping Street, Tung Kun Street, Lee Tat Street, Cheung Shui Street, and a section of Canton Road) were classic working-class Hong Kong: overcrowded, a little seedy but undeniably lively.
Located next to the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter (since moved westwards because of reclamation), the area was first developed in the early 20th century, and by the 1950s the Six Streets were lined with five-storey tong lau (tenement buildings), whose 600-square-foot flats had been subdivided to accommodate part of the huge influx of working-class refugees from China.
About 10,000 people lived in the area’s 652 housing units – roughly 15 people per flat.