Yau Ma Tei Police Station is a

police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, al ...

Yau Ma Tei Yau Ma Tei is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. Name ''Yau Ma Tei'' is a phonetic transliteration of the name (originally written as ) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, ...

Kowloon Kowloon () is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. With a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of in 2006, it is the most populous area in Hong Kong, compared with Hong Kong Island and t ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. Its buildings at No. 627

Canton Road Canton Road is a major road in Hong Kong, linking the former west reclamation shore in Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and Prince Edward on the Kowloon Peninsula. The road runs mostly parallel and west to Nathan Road. It starts ...

, at the junction of

Public Square Street Public Square Street (; formerly ) is a street in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Location The street runs in an east-west alignment from Cliff Road to Ching Ping Street (), meeting Nathan Road, Temple Street, Shanghai Street, Reclamation S ...

, were erected in 1922Brief Information on Proposed Grade II Items, pp.211-212
/ref> after relocation from the junction of Public Square Street and

Shanghai Street Shanghai Street is a 2.3 km long List of streets and roads in Hong Kong, street in the Jordan, Hong Kong, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok areas of Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Completed in 1887 under the name of Station Street (差館街), it ...

. The station closed on 22 May 2016 (except for the reporting centre, which will remain open to the public). A new station of the same name opened on that date at No. 3 Yau Cheung Road.

History

Yau Ma Tei Police Station was built in 1922. Additions were made after World War II, including a 1957 extension wing to serve as barracks and an accommodation block, to the west of the existing station. During the 1966 riots, the police station was attacked by a mob but the police managed to suppress it rapidly.

Architecture

The neoclassical Main Block is built in

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

Free Style. There is a traditional

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

on both sides of Canton Road and Public Square Street. The main entrance is a semi-circular portico set in the indented corner at the junction of Public Square Street and Canton Road. Such indented corners are features often used for feng shui reasons.

Conservation status

On 18 December 2009, the building was classified as a Grade II historic building. Part of the new wing which was constructed in 1950's is proposed to be underpinned as part of the reprovisioning works associated with the construction of the three-laned

Central Kowloon Route The Central Kowloon Route (CKR) is a highway project under construction in Kowloon, Hong Kong. When completed in 2025, it will form the section of the planned Route 6 which runs through the Kowloon Peninsula, largely underground. The three-lane du ...

in order to retain the structure of the existing structural form for the benefit of future generations. The original building has a large side gate opening onto Public Square Street, to the right of the main entrance. This gate has been permanently locked since at least the late 1970s, because opening is deemed unlucky after a number of shooting incidents involving officers who left the station via the gate. In one corner of the compound there is a small shrine to ward off the bad fung-shui which some believe to be created by the adjacent

Gascoigne Road Gascoigne Road () is a main road in Kowloon, Hong Kong, going west-east from Nathan Road to Chatham Road South through the head of King's Park, leading vehicles from West Kowloon to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. Gascoigne Road Flyover () is a ...

Flyover. In the wake of growing heritage conservation awareness following the demolition of the Star Ferry Pier in Edinburgh Place, lawmakers are threatening to block funding of the project.

Cultural appearances

The Yau Ma Tei Police Station is the location of a scene of the 2001 film ''

Rush Hour 2 ''Rush Hour 2'' is a 2001 American buddy action comedy film directed by Brett Ratner and written by Jeff Nathanson, based on the characters created by Ross LaManna. A sequel to '' Rush Hour'', it is the second installment in the ''Rush Hour'' f ...

''. However, because the scene called for an explosion, the real filming had to be done in a movie studio, where wires and other special effects could be used. The station was also featured in the 2007

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong SAR. The Company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese language service, and ...

programme ''On the First Beat''. It was used multiple times for shots of the canteen, locker rooms, and other locations.

Transportation

Yau Ma Tei station Yau Ma Tei, formerly named Waterloo after Waterloo Road, is an MTR station located in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon. It is served by the and the . The station opened on 22 December 1979 and was renamed as Yau Ma Tei on 31 May 1985 along with Argyl ...

Exit C

References

External links

Offbeat Online: Yau Ma Tei Police Station
{{coord, 22.309676, 114.168704, type:landmark_region:HK, name=Yau Ma Tei Police Station, display=title Yau Ma Tei Police stations in Hong Kong Government buildings completed in 1922 Grade II historic buildings in Hong Kong