Hollywood Road Police Married Quarters

The land between Aberdeen Street, Staunton Street, Hollywood Road and Shing Wong Street is a historic site containing a grade III listed building, the old Hollywood Road Police Married Quarters, now used as a mixed-use venue for arts and design.PMQ, as it is now known, occupies what was originally the grounds of Queen's College, which built a school on the site in 1889. After wartime damage, the site was repurposed as quarters for married junior policemen. The compound is listed as a Grade III historic building since 2010. In 2014, after nearly 15 years of disuse, the building was renamed PMQ and opened to the public. The building's residential units were turned into studios, shops and offices for creative enterprises and exhibition spaces.

The mission of PMQ is to nurture local designers, provide a stage for creative happenings and create a place for visitors to experience creative lifestyle; it is a not-for-profit social enterprise supporting Hong Kong brands and innovation.

The Central Government School was built on Gough Street in 1862 and it was the first government primary and secondary school in Hong Kong, which provided western education to the public. In 1889, due to the increasing number of students, the school had to relocate to a new campus on Hollywood Road. Later on the school was renamed 'Victoria College', then Queen’s College in 1894. At that time, the school was one of the largest and most expensive buildings in Hong Kong. Many local leaders and talent have been nurtured at this school, including the Father of Modern China, Dr Sun Yat-sen and business tycoons such as Sir Robert Ho Tung. They were all elites at the time and contributed a lot to Hong Kong and China’s development. However, during the Japanese Occupation in 1941, the building was destroyed. In 1948, the remaining building was demolished. In 1951, in order to increase the police recruitment in response to the influx of Chinese immigrants after the Chinese Civil War, PMQ provided 140 single room units and 28 double room units for the rank and file officers serving at the nearby Central Police Station. Former Hong Kong Chief Executives C.Y. Leung and Donald Tsang have both lived there. In 2000, the building was emptied. In 2009, the 'Conserving Central' project mentioned in the Policy Address that eight heritage sites in Central including PMQ should be renovated. Finally in April 2014 PMQ started to operate as a creative hub.

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