Hong Kong's first constructed road
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Hollywood Road and the small streets around it are packed with galleries and knick-knack shops that sell everything from expensive porcelain ware and Ming dynasty ceramic, to Chinese furniture and kitsch Maoist memorabilia, and is a great place to visit even if you are not buying anything, as some of these shops (especially the expensive galleries) really look like "mini museums", with precious pieces of art in their windows...
The historic street runs from Queen's Road West to the trendy nightlife district of SoHo, and was actually the first road to be constructed in early Hong Kong, right after the island was conquered by the Brits during the First Opium War.
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Hollywood Road gained its reputation as Hong Kong's antiques market, right from its very beginning, when it was much closer to the shoreline (before reclamation "pushed" the sea away) and European merchants used to pass here on their way back home, and sell the antiques they collected in China...
Unlike what most people think, Hong Kong's Hollywood Road has nothing to do with Los Angeles' glitzy suburb and, as a matter of fact, the more famous Hollywood did not even exist at the time the road was built, back in the early 1840s... 'Hollywood' in this case, was actually the name of a local shrub that used to grow wild around here, before the whole area was conquered by concrete...
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A small insight from 'Metropolasia-Man' :
The street had its fifteen minutes of fame in the early 1960s, when part of a successful Hollywood film, called The World of Suzie Wong, was shot here (so if you really insist on finding some link between the road and California's film industry mecca, there it is...)
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Other than exotic shops and beautiful galleries, Hollywood Road is a 'jumping board' to some of Sheung Wan's most interesting sights, including Possession Point (where British soldiers had first set a foot on Hong Kong soil), Man Mo Temple, Ladder Street, The Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences and Dr. Sun Yat-sen Museum...
F.Y.I : Most shops on Hollywood Road and its offshoots don't open before 11 am and stay closed on Sundays.
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Other places of interest around Hollywood Road :
Possession Point
Man Mo Temple
Small atmospheric streets around Hollywood Road
Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences
Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum
Former Central Police Station Compound
Central-Mid Levels escalators
Hollywood Road is part of our suggested walking-tour:
Sheung Wan
