A 2.7-hectare enclave of opium parlours, whorehouses and gambling dens run by triads, it was a place where police, health inspectors and even tax collectors feared to tread. In Cantonese, it was known as the City of Darkness.

But though it may have been a fetid slum, crawling with rats and dripping with sewage, it was stoutly defended to the last by those who lived there, as well as an unlikely ensemble of Chinese shopkeepers, faith healers and self-taught dentists. It was once thought to be the most densely populated place on earth, with 35,000 people crammed into a few tiny apartment blocks and more than 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, all constructed without contributions from a single architect.

But in March 1993, the last batch of residents finally accepted the government's rehousing terms and compensation terms. It brought down the final curtain on a bizarre chapter of Hong Kong's colonial past. Ask former residents what they miss most about the Walled City and most say the friendship.

In the 1960s, the Heung family of six moved from a rooftop hut in Hung Hom to the Walled City. 

click on the image to zoom

At first they lived in a 70 sq ft room in a two-storey house near Tung Tau Chuen Road, which they shared with seven other families. Several years later they moved to a two-bedroom flat on the fourth floor of a high-rise on Tai Cheng Street.

"Life was poor, but we were very happy," said Heung Yin-king, the eldest daughter.

"We had the best times in the first house, even though the rooms were so tiny there wasn't space for a dinner table.

"We ate from a board laid over the knitting machine and sat on the bed. Everyone got along, and it was great to have so many kids to play with.

"The second house was all right but had no taps, so as the eldest daughter I had the responsibility of hauling buckets of water from the public taps up four floors to the flat every day. That's why I'm so short!"

The history of the Kowloon Walled City dates from the Sung Dynasty of 960-1297, when it began as a small fort to house the imperial soldiers who controlled the salt trade. In the second half of the 19th century, the Chinese were facing invasion by the British, who held Hong Kong Island. So they expanded it into a proper garrison town containing soldiers, officials and their families.

In 1898, it became the only part of Hong Kong that China was unwilling to cede to Britain under the 99-year lease of Kowloon and the New Territories. The British agreed that China could keep the Walled City until the colonial administration for the area was established. But China never dropped its claim of jurisdiction and the sovereignty fight remained unresolved. The result was that it became a lawless enclave and a hotbed of criminal activity.

In December 1899, after several unsuccessful attempts to clear the city, the British announced their jurisdiction was to be extended to include it and the Chinese officials left. The city became isolated. While parts were leased to church-run, charitable institutions, much was left to fall into disrepair. By 1940 only the Lung Chun School, its gateway and one private home remained.

When the Japanese invaded in the second world war, they demolished the oldest standing part of the Walled City - its wall, used in work on Kai Tak airport. But the destruction didn't prevent Chinese refugees flocking to the site after the war. Rents were low, and there were no concerns about taxes, visas or licences. By 1947 there were 2,000 squatter camps on the site. Permanent buildings followed, and by 1971, 10,000 people occupied 2,185 dwellings.

By the late 1980s, it was home to 35,000 people. The government tried to clear the city several times, but on each occasion the residents threatened to create a diplomatic incident. Their attitude - handy when it came to keeping the noses of the authorities out of their business - was that the city was part of China and would never belong to Hong Kong. And to avoid damaging Sino-British relations, the government adopted a largely hands-off policy towards it. The city again became a hotbed of criminal activity. Opium dens, heroin stands, brothels and dog restaurants all multiplied in the '50s and '60s, with police usually turning a blind eye. There were three reasons for that - the police were politically hamstrung, some were bribed and it was too dangerous. Real power lay with the triads. But the position changed in the '70s, when a wave of anti-corruption campaigns removed most criminal elements in the authorities. No longer protected, the triads became weaker.

The height of the Walled City rose with the rest of Hong Kong. In the 1950s, housing usually consisted of wooden and stone low-rises. In the '60s, concrete buildings of four or five storeys appeared. And in the '70s, many were replaced by blocks of 10 storeys or more. The site became chaotically cramped, with buildings so close to each other that in some it was impossible to open a window. Low rents also meant many small factories, with toys, plastic goods and food among the biggest products. The factories may have brought their owners decent incomes, but they also brought more rubbish, fire hazards and pollution to the city. Limited interference by the authorities also meant limited welfare. Apart from basic municipal services such as rubbish collection, residents had to rely on each other to maintain living conditions. That bred a close-knit community of people willing to support each other.

The Walled City's fate was finally decided in January 1987, when the government announced plans to demolish it. After an arduous eviction process, demolition began in March 1993 and was completed in April 1994. Kowloon Walled City Park opened on the site in December 1995. But some artefacts from the Walled City, including its Yamen building, remain. This was built in the early 1800s and served as a military headquarters. Remnants of its South Gate have also been preserved.

But while it has been demolished, memories of the Walled City - and its spirit - still live on in the hearts of many Hongkongers. It could be argued that today we have lost some of the sense of community and social solidarity that could once be seen there.

Growing up, Albert Ng Kam-po and his friends would go to the roof and fly kites that could almost scrape the bellies of airliners as they descended to Kai Tak Airport across the street.

"We didn't know it was so dangerous," says Ng, 45, a pastor at the English-speaking Island Evangelical Community Church in Quarry Bay.

"We'd just play ping-pong in the hallway. The kids would go up onto the roofs and leap from building to building, or we would drag discarded mattresses to the roof and jump on them. It was a happy time."

Ida Shum a 62-year-old former resident now living in Hung Hom, agreed that the some of the worst and poorest people in Hong Kong lived there. She said it was a haven for triad groups such as the 14K and Sun Yee On, who jealously controlled their territory. But she also said there was much more to the Walled City than that. She remembered how when it was raining, the street was nearly always flooded. Water would rise to people's knees with trash floating around, but the residents just walked through it in their bare feet. No problem, no matter how difficult, could be overcome. Shum described how her neighbour always helped her take care of her children and they cooked for each other. This allowed her to focus on her work and earn money to feed her family.

"We all had very good relationships in very bad conditions. Even now, many people stay in touch with each other even though some old friends are overseas," Shum said.

"People who lived there were always loyal to each other. In the Walled City, the sunshine always followed the rain."

—

Text and all photos are taken from www.scmp.com.

Now we are carefree, tender and airy.
Let us think: how quiet are, the snowy
peaks of the Urals.

If we get sad over a pale figure,
whom we have lost on some evening,
we know that, somewhere, a little creek,
instead of it, all in red, is flowing!

One love, morning in foreign land,
envelops our soul, gets tighter,
in endless peace of blue seas,
from which the crimson corals glitter,
like, from my distant homeland, cherries.

We wake up at night, smiling dearly,
to the Moon with its bow bent,
caressing the distant hills, tenderly,
and icy mountains, with our hand.

The Explanation of Sumatra

I felt, one day, all the helplessness of our life, and the intricacy of our destiny. I saw that no one goes where they want, and I noticed connections unobserved before. That day, some people from Senegal, and some Annamites, walked past me; I met an old friend of mine, coming back from the war. When I asked him where he was coming from, he replied: from Bukhara!

His mother had died and the neighbors had buried her. Someone had stolen all his furniture, from his house. Not even a bed, he said, do I have now!

And when I asked him how he had traveled here, he told me:

"Over Japan and England, where I got arrested."
"What will you do now?" I asked him. "I don't know. I'm all alone. You know I was engaged. She's gone somewhere. Maybe she wasn't receiving my letters. Who knows where life will throw her? I don't know what to do, maybe get a job in a bank."

All this happened at the station in Zagreb. Later I got on a train and traveled further. The train was crowded, mostly with soldiers, ragged women and many confused people. There wasn't any light and shadows were all that I could see. Little kids were lying down, on the floor, around our feet. Exhausted, I couldn't sleep at all. People all around me were talking, and I noticed that even the voices were somehow heavy and that human talk never sounded like that. Staring at the dark windows, I reminisced the friend of mine describing some snowy peaks of the Ural Mountains, where he had spent a year in a prison camp. He talked, lengthily, in tender voice, about that part of the Urals.

And I felt all that white, infinite silence, there in the distance. I smiled. Many are the places where that man has been! I remembered him telling me about a woman. From his description I only remembered her pale face. He repeated, a couple of times, how pale she was when he last saw her.

In my memory, anxiously, some women's faces, that I had said farewell to, started whirling, some faces I had encountered on ships and trains. That made me gasp, so I went out, into the corridor. The train had just reached the summits of Frushka Gora. Some branches were knocking on the window pane, which was broken.

Through it, the humid, wet, cold scent of trees started entering the train, and I could hear the murmur of a creek. We stopped before a crumbled tunnel.

I wanted to see that creek, that kept gurgling in the darkness, and I had the impression that it was red, and cheerful. My eyes were weary from the lack of sleep, and some weakness, from the long journey, came over me. I thought: look, how there aren't any connections in this world. My friend loved that woman, and she was left alone, in some snow-covered house, in Tobolsk. Nothing can be kept. Even me, so many are the places I've been to.

And yet, here, how cheerfully does this creek flow. It is red and it murmurs. I leaned my head onto the broken window pane. Some soldiers were walking, on the roof, from carriage to carriage. And all those pale faces, and all my sorrow disappeared in the gurgling of that creek in the dark. The train couldn't move on. We had to climb the tunnel at Chortanovci and walk to the other side.

It was cold. I walked, among the crowd of unknown passengers. The grass was damp, so we were sliding slowly, and some were falling. When we finally climbed the hill, underneath we saw the Danube, gray, hazy. All the mist, behind which there was an inkling of a sky, was infinite, endless. Green hills, like islands above ground, were vanishing in the dawn. I was lagging behind.

And my thoughts, still, followed my friend on that journey of which he was telling me with some bitter humor. Blue seas, distant islands, unknown to me, scarlet plants and corals, which I remembered, probably, from geography, kept hurling into my thoughts.

Finally, the peace, the calmness of the dawn, slowly started filling my being. Everything my friend was telling me, and he himself, in his torn, army overcoat, remained inside my brain, forever. All of a sudden I remembered the cities, and the people, that I'd seen coming back from the war. For the first time, I felt some immense change in the world.

On the other side of the tunnel, another train was waiting for us. Even though it was dawning in the distance, in the train it was still completely dark. Weary, I sat in a gloomy corner, all alone. A couple of times I repeated to myself: S u m a t r a, S u m a t r a!

Everything is entangled. They have changed us. I remembered what life was like, before. And I bowed my head.

The train started off with a roar. I was lulled to sleep by the fact that everything was so strange, life, and the great distances within it. Think of all the places our anguish has reached, all the faces we caressed, tired, in foreign lands! Not only me, or him, but so many others as well! Thousands, millions!

I thought: how will my homeland greet me? The cherries must be ripe already, and the villages are full of joy. Look, how even the colours, all the way to the stars, are the same, on the cherries, and on the corals! How everything is connected, in the world. "Sumatra" – I said, again, mockingly, to myself.

Suddenly I trembled. Some unrest in me, that hadn't even reached the consciousness, woke me up. I went out to the corridor. It was cold there. The train stood still in a forest. In one carriage, people were singing. Somewhere, a child was crying. But all those sounds were coming to me as if from a great distance. The morning chill came over my skin.

I also saw the Moon, glistening, and I smiled inadvertently. He is the same everywhere, because he is dead.

I felt all the helplessness of ours, all my sorrow. "Sumatra", I whispered, with a strange air.

But, in my soul, deep inside, despite all the reluctance, I felt infinite love for those faraway hills, snowy mountains, all the way up to the frozen seas. For those distant islands where, maybe, all that we've ever done is now happening. I lost the fear of death. Connections with the world around me. Like in some insane hallucination, I was floating up into those endless, morning mists, to stretch my hand and caress the distant Ural, the seas of India, where all the blush from my face had gone. To caress the islands, the loves, the enamored, pale figures. All the intricacy turned into immense peace and endless consolation.

*

Later, in a hotel room, in Novi Sad, I put it all into a poem.

Belgrade, 1920.

*

Translation: Lazar Pascanovic

The Statue of Liberty was supposed to be a centennial gift from France to the United States, but funding difficulties waylaid the project for almost a decade.

The head and torch were completed long before the base and the rest of the body — these disembodied sculptures were put on display years prior, with the hand ending up at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. Only after a decade of fundraising did construction accelerate. As the National Park Service explains:

"Financing for the pedestal was completed in August 1885, and pedestal construction was finished in April of 1886.

The Statue was completed in France in July, 1884 and arrived in New York Harbor in June of 1885 on board the French frigate "Isere" which transported the Statue of Liberty from France to the United States. In transit, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates.

The Statue was re-assembled on her new pedestal in four months time. On October 28th 1886, the dedication of the Statue of Liberty took place in front of thousands of spectators."

Here are some curious photographs of this iconic Statue in various states of disarray.

—

The article originally published on io9.com via The New York Public Library, Ptak Science Books, Ptak and Retronaut.

The article was adapted by The Travel Club editorial staff. 

Author: Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg (1912)