Lee Tung Street

Lee Tung Street
View of the boarded up Lee Tung Street
Traditional Chinese	利東街
Simplified Chinese	利东街
Transcriptions Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Lìdōng Jiē
Wedding Card Street
Chinese	喜帖街
Literal meaning	joyous posters street
Transcriptions

The south end of Lee Tung Street

Lee Tung Street, known as the Wedding Card Street by locals, is located at Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Involved in a project executed by the Urban Renewal Authority (URA), was torn down in December 2007. The demolition is seen by many as an irretrievable detriment to the cultural heritage of Hong Kong.

All interests of this street are now being resumed and were reverted to the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since 1 November 2005.

History

The street has been famous for its printing industry for long and Wan Chai was a long time host of the headquarters of the Hong Kong Times, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Pao. In the 1950s, Hong Kong Government gathers print shops in Lee Tung Street between Johnston Road and Queen's Road East. Rumours had it that the purpose is to easily monitor any illegal publication. In any case, the print shops developed their own letters, envelopes and name card. In 1970s, they also produced wedding invitations, lai see, fai chun and other items and became famous in 1980s. Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people had visited the shops there to order their wedding cards, name cards and traditional Chinese calendars.

Redevelopment

In 2003, the Urban Renewal Authority announced it would spend HK$3.58 billion to redevelop Lee Tung Street and McGregor Street (Chinese:麥加力歌街), an area covering 8,900 square meters. According to an authority spokesman, up to the end of June 2005, more than 85 percent of the 647 affected homeowners on Lee Tung Street had agreed to accept compensation offers of HK$4,079 per square foot. The purchase of the land is expected to be completed early 2006. The street was dully demolished starting from December 2007. In its place will stand four high-rise buildings and one underground car park, and new shops that together makes the image of the street as a “Wedding City”. That means the old shops here, which are mostly small businesses and family run, have to move to somewhere else to make business, facing high rent and losing old customers. In the meantime, the commodification process of Hong Kong is carried on.

Contestation

In spite of a viable counter-proposal (dubbed the Dumbbell Proposal and designed by professional architect Christopher Law, it proposed to keep intact the signature six-storey Tong Lau in the middle part of the street and would have rendered possible to preserve the community) by the H15 Concern Group and strong protests by residents (including a hunger strike by May Je) and other activists, the URA and the government went on to demolish the street as planned.

Trivia

The famous poet and translator Dai Wangshu established a short-lived bookstore in Lee Tung Street in the early 1950s.

Gallery

• 

  Road sign of Lee Tung Street.

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  Signboards, many of them are those of printing houses, hanging on Lee Tung Street.

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  A printing shop closed down with a sign posted by the Urban Renewal Authority.

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  Banners brandished all over Lee Tung Street against the demolishing action of the government.

See also

• List of streets and roads in Hong Kong

External links

• Gallery
• Gallery
• 《灣仔街紙》－市區重建策略檢討公民參與文件 | Wan Chai 'Street post' – Urban regeneration strategy public consultation paper (via Project SEE)