The scene involves Cosby and Culp moving across the rooftop of a block of shophouses in Danny was a Million Laughs. Not surprisingly, the block has largely been redeveloped but afew of the columned shophouses can still be found. The closest I can do is provide you with a shot of the same corner from street level as well as a quick piccie of the remaining shophouses I mentioned earlier.
Here are the screen caps.
Believe it or not there is still plenty of illegal rooftop occupation going on in HK, largely thanks to its ridiculously expensive real estate. But anyway, this particular set of illegal occupancies have long gone. At the far left is the gap in the buildings that forms Jaffe Road. I suspect the block was redeveloped piecemeal because the various current building dates are not uniform (plus the fact that a small portion of the old block still exists). For example, the Yen Men Building at 98-108 Jaffe Road was built in 1984, the corner block (89 Lockhart Rd) was replaced by the Wanchai Central Building in 1997, Beverly House (93 - 107 Lockhart Rd) was built in 1984, Hing Bong Mansion (107-11 Lockhart Rd) was built in 1985, One Capital Place (corner of Luard and Jaffe) was built in 1991. Such is the way of private development in HK. If it was the Govt doing this they would just get the U.R.A to completely eradicate the whole block and several streets (in the same way a nuclear bomb would) and then build a high end mall.
Anyhow, Thomas also found a comparative street level picture (courtesy of Doug) that shows us what was written on those signs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58451159@N00/7190016127
So we know that the corner building that we can see in the bottom of the top screen grab housed the "Mini Nightclub" (yes, either a night club for cars or midgets, can't decide which one yet), the partially obscured "Canadian Club" sign can also be seen a can the "United Night Club" which was almost completely obscured in our I Spy screen grab and was making me guess Red or Ted when I should have been thinking in terms of longer words.
Anyway, here is the modern Streetview, looking at the same corner that housed the "Mini Nightclub" all those years ago.
And finally, here is what I believe to be the sole remnant of that old block - situated at 109 - 111 Lockhart Road.
7 comments:
I spent a night in that building on the end in '72-it was where the "Lucky Apartments" was, on the floor above the United Bar and the Mini Nightclub. The filthiest room I have ever been in-everything stained and streaked a dingy brown, with huge cockroaches climbing out of the bathtub drain. The "Mini" was just your standard Hostess bar, with one "topless" girl bartender. The bar was at the front of the place, and if you looked promising to one of the girls, they moved you back to one of the booths quite far in the back of the place. I'm such an exciting guy that the girl I was with fell asleep leaning against me.
wow - who needs the Peninsula hotel when you have all those extras provided for you free of charge...hehe ;-)
I've been combing my Flickr photos in reference to the present-day 109 Bar. I'm sure my photo "Hot Pants Bar 1974" shows this building, but I can't determine the street address of the "Hot Pants Bar" (or "Hong Kong Lady Bar" before about 1970). I had a photo of a bar card from the HK Lady, But I can't find it. The Boston Bar was at 99 Lockhart, and the Winner Horse Bar was at 125 Lockhart. The Winner Horse later became the Popeye Bar, and then the "Cockeye Bar". Is the San Francisco Bar, at 129 Lockhart, still in the same building from 1972?
Doug "m20wc51"
Hi Doug, I can confirm that from 123 Lockhart to the end of the block (141?) by O Brien Rd are the same buildings that were there in 1972. So it looks like the old SF bar venue building is still around as is the building with the Winner Horse Bar.
Cheers
Phil
Doug - here is Streetview looking in roughly the same direction as your picture of the Winner Horse bar picture:
https://maps.google.com.hk/maps?hl=en&ll=22.278169,114.173098&spn=0.001353,0.001725&t=h&z=19&brcurrent=3,0x3404005b7e61fe79:0x242571e635c3d8ee,1,0x3404004c435d4ad9:0x6e0e524894ae1a66&layer=c&cbll=22.27816,114.172999&panoid=kYiKPP1BpzmcUy4hEzbZPg&cbp=12,296.23,,0,-7.88
The pink building on the right is where the winner horse bar was - in Streetview it houses a place called the Pussy Cat :-)
Thank you for the information. That street holds a lot of fascination for me,remembering how it was. I'm pleased to see how clean and green it is today,but it is a shame some of those corner shophouses weren't saved. Look at the photo I just posted on Flickr of the roof of the Ocean Bar at Lockhart and Luard, across the street from the Mini.
There are still around 70-odd shophouses left, but they are spread out all over HK and Kowloon. Not ,many corner ones in there but there are some good examples in Sham Shui Po and Cheung Sha Wan, as well as the one on Hennessy Rd opposite Tin Kok Lane.
Did you mean the picture showing all the plants growing along the roof? Very cool. It could have been someones garden :-)
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