THE STAYCATION SPECIAL

News Feature
Stairs and the City
“Stairs perform a function of public space that we are
lacking in Hong Kong,” says Cate Christ. Much like parks
but located more conveniently, stairs are meeting places,
resting areas, and quiet corners far from traffic. Not long
ago, the city’s staircases served as market streets. Before
cars, people mostly stuck to stairs to get around the city
quickly, so shops opened up to capture this foot traffic.
Wide landings offered relief to coolies as they made their
way up the city.
But increasingly, staircases are subject to development.
A proposal to put in a new escalator on Pound Lane in
Sheung Wan, which would cost some $200 million to
construct, has been met with contention in the community.
“The area is historic,” says Cate Christ. “We already
have a SoHo. We already have a Lan Kwai Fong. If an
escalator gets put in, then we’re going to see gentrification
overnight, like what happened with Centre Street [in
Sai Ying Pun].” She remembers when, early on in the
government’s proposal for Pound Lane, units around the
escalator were already being bought up by developers—
”[Escalators] have a history of increasing rent, and that’s
why developers like it.”
The Stairs
in Your Eyes
With the inclusion of 16 new sets of stairs on
Google Street View, Hong Kong has yet another
reason to save its staircases. By Jessica Wei
Photo: Felix Wong/SCMP
Tripped Up
“We’re making the argument that the stairs should
be considered public space,” says Cate Christ. “Stairs
are structures, not just sidewalks, and they should be
catalogued.” In 2012 Cate Christ and her students
suggested to the Central and Western District Council
and the Transport Department that instead of installing
the escalator, the government simply implement small
changes—such as putting in a new handrail, widening the
sidewalks, or putting in green edges and benches—to
increase the quality of life in the neighborhood.
But her pleas went ignored. “The government
wasn’t really interested in improving the quality of the
neighborhood,” she says. “They were interested in
redeveloping.”
The Stairs my Destination
Stair Culture and Google both say they’re trying to
highlight something that many don’t see: That there’s
significance to Hong Kong’s stairs beyond moving people
around. In this city of fast cars and hyper-efficient public
transport, they are the only places which are wholly and
freely for pedestrians. “Maybe we can help to introduce
these amazing stairs to future generations,” says Google’s
Cynthia Wei. With luck Raf Ho can get through all our
stairs before they truly become history.
Explore Hong Kong’s Street View staircases at tiny.cc/hkstaircases.
Visit Stair Culture at stairculture.com
Imagine walking in a straight line with a book placed
on your head. Now imagine that the book is the
Google Trekker: an 18kg sphere studded with 15
camera lenses encased in metal and held aloft over your
head. And that straight line is a long set of worn-down,
slippery, uneven stone steps—and you still need to keep
your balance. It’s all in a day’s work for Google Trekker
operator Raf Ho, who wanders the streets and trails of
Hong Kong as part of his work for Google Street View.
Google has been mapping Hong Kong onto its digital
database since 2010, but until the advent of the wearable
Google Trekker camera in 2013, the only way to map
the city was through their Street View car. But this year
the search company isn’t just going off-road: It wants
to preserve our disappearing heritage, too.
Snapping Steps
Since May 5, anyone with an Internet connection can
head to Google and scale any one of 15 staircases: from
the 373 steps of Ladder Street, which connects Sheung
Wan to Caine Road via Man Mo Temple; to the path
leading up to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery,
lined with hundreds of life-size gilded statues.
“What we’re doing right now is archiving history, to allow
[current] users or people in the future to see how this city
changes over time,” says Cynthia Wei, the Asia Pacific
Project Manager for Google Map’s Street View, “Most
of the stairs are open to the elements. It’s always fastchanging;
new parts of the city develop and old parts
get quieter and quieter.”
There’s a lot more still to go: Currently, there are over
3,000 stairs in Central and Western district, according to
Stair Culture, a research project founded by landscape
architect and Polytechnic University research professor
Melissa Cate Christ. She and her team are creating their
own archive of the city’s stairs in an effort to provide the city
with a sense of the roles that stairs play in the community.
Where the Pedestrians Roam
Learn more about Hong Kong on these walking tours.
1. HK Free Walk Free, tip-supported walking tours of
Tsim Sha Tsui, with stops at historic landmarks and guides
who cover everything from street food to Bruce Lee.
hkfreewalk.com
2. Walk Hong Kong Hiking is more fun when you
know where you’re going. With Walk Hong Kong,
participants discover the heritage and trivia of
Hong Kong’s natural landscapes—
and its man-made defenses.
walkhongkong.com
3. Little Adventures in
Hong Kong Tailor-made food walks
and culture tours with some of our
favorite people.
littleadventuresinhongkong.com
Raf Ho and his Google Trekker
camera (Photo: David Wong/SCMP)
14 HK MAGAZINE FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016