Just another day...: Signal Tower

When Maggie was young we often visited a little roadside playground after attending playgroup at the YMCA with friends who lived across the street in the former New World Apartments. It was in the shadow of a hilltop garden where sits a building called Signal Tower.

It has been many years since I climbed up the steep path to look at Signal Tower, so went again for nostalgia's sake on the way to the post office after lunch with Alex.

steep stairs

banyan tree

The handsome red-brick building dates from the early 1900s and housed a mechanism that dropped a "time-ball" that was hoisted up and dropped at a certain time so that mariners and other people could keep time.

This little garden on a hill known as Blackhead Point in Tsim Sha Tsui has remained through the (re)development of the surrounding area. Way before all the reclamation of the waterfront, it was a high point with the tower being visible to the boats in Victoria Harbour.

One can still see a snippet of the harbor from part of the park, but the tower is now dwarfed and hidden by skyscrapers. In fact, the path leading to this peaceful area is next to a refuse collection point and easy to miss. Many walk by on their way to the MTR station.

bubble tea on blustery Blackhead Point

The little park Maggie played at is long gone, but another park of the same name was built on the roof of a bus terminus atop the East Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station along with a walkway, viewpoint, benches, and gardens built over Chatham Road South and another bus terminus that leads to a waterfront promenade (walkway) that stretches from Hung Hom Stadium to the Kowloon Star Ferry.

It's called Middle Road Children's Playground and connects to Waterfront Podium Garden. It's a pleasant way to walk to/from Hung Hom station to E TST.

The waterfront apartments my friends lived in are also long gone. They were part of a residential, office, commercial building including a hotel. We used to watch the hourly display that popped out of the wall above the entrance to the mall. It consisted of kitschy figurines "marching" to music-box tunes and enthralled the children. The closest comparison would be the display at Disneyland's It's a Small World.

The new New World Centre development is nearly finished after being razed and looks completely different. I guess it goes with the times.

Bonus photos of our tsukemen and ramen lunch, Alex on the MTR and out and about in TST after YMCA playgroup circa 1999.