STORY: Hong Kong's old walk-ups find new lease of life by fandom of New Yorker  
SHOOTING TIME: Recent footage
DATELINE: Sept. 16, 2024
LENGTH: 00:03:15
LOCATION: HONG KONG, China   
CATEGORY: CULTURE   

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the neighborhood of tong-laus
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
3. various of Dare Koslow in tong-laus in Gage Street
4. file footage of Hong Kong, China
5. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
6. file footage of Hong Kong's tong-laus
7. photo of old Gage Street
8. SOUNDBITE 3 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
9. various of tong-laus in Gage Street
10. SOUNDBITE 4 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
11. various of tong-laus in Gage Street
12. file footage of Hong Kong's tong-laus, the Lingnan-style Blue House and tong-laus along Wing Lee Street
13. SOUNDBITE 5 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
14. shot of Hong Kong, China

STORYLINE:

On one side of Gage Street in Hong Kong's Central District, high-rises are taking shape to join the skyscrapers-filled skyline of Hong Kong Island.

Across the street, New Yorker Dare Koslow, 62, and his contractor were discussing which shade of gray wall paint to use for the terrace of an apartment in a 56-year-old five-storey tong-lau -- the old walk-up residential building endemic to Hong Kong.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
"My heart is in Hong Kong. I really love Hong Kong, and I feel that mix of international city, safe city. You could walk the streets at any time of the day or night, and just know that you're never going to be under any kind of threat."

The 508-square-feet apartment is one of some 20 tong-lau units Koslow has bought, renovated and put up for lease since he came to Hong Kong in 1995. His infatuation with tong-laus has blossomed into lifelong endeavors to preserve and revive the architectural legacy of Hong Kong.

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
"I like to live in older style apartments, that's what I've always lived in, except for I did try living in the high-rise when I first came, but I didn't like it at all."

Featured in iconic scenes in In the Mood for Love, Echoes of the Rainbow and other Hong Kong movies, tong-laus became prevalent in Hong Kong in the 19th Century. These low-rise buildings with three to five stories of residential units on top of a ground-floor shop were once the hallmark of Hong Kong's urban landscape, but are now giving way to modern skyscrapers.

SOUNDBITE 3 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
"It was like its own little version of a walled city, but you could really discover a lot of stuff, and there were a lot of older style shops down there, selling noodles, selling all different kinds of things needed for your daily existence."

Koslow makes it a mission to preserve or restore the original tong-lau style. One can easily tell which units are Koslow's in the Gage Street building just by looking at its facade, because Koslow replicated for all of them window security grilles typical of older tong-laus -- horizontal iron bars with a chevron dent in the middle across the width of each window.

Another reason why Koslow insists on renovating every tong-lau unit is to create homes that he wants to live in, hoping that tenants will inherit the thought of making the brick-and-mortar apartments their homes.

SOUNDBITE 4 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
"You wouldn't find a tong-lau in, like, New York. You wouldn't find it. I don't think you'd find it in Singapore, each city, each place in Asia, in any place in the world. It tends to take on a certain characteristic, a certain style of architecture that is its own. The tong-lau is Hong Kong's, and I think we should be proud of it. I think in Beijing you have the quad houses, or what do you call them? Courtyard houses! Yes, and I love them."

The preservation of tong-laus has garnered increasing attention in Hong Kong. The Lingnan-style Blue House built in 1922 with wide balconies in Wan Chai won a 2017 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award of Excellence for Cultural Heritage Conservation. Tong-laus along Wing Lee Street, the location of Echoes of the Rainbow, are now reinvented as communal living spaces.

SOUNDBITE 5 (English): DARE KOSLOW, Landlord of tong-laus
"It is my decision what I want to do each day. Get up and go to the city, go to deal with an issue in attendance of place and one of the properties, looking for new materials to renovate or looking for replacement for things they may have broken. It's fun. I enjoy that kind of activity and so that keeps me busy over here. When I'm in the United States, I don't have the same thing as I'm not looking to buy a house over there."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Hong Kong, China.
(XHTV)