The traffic thunders down Ma Tau Wai Road into the neighbourhood of To Kwa Wan. The blocks southwest of the old airport are gritty, tightly packed and still dominated by the air freight, storage and mechanical-repair businesses that grew up around Kai Tak.
Sung Wong Toi Road marks one boundary of the airport, which closed in 1998. To the south, ageing 10-storey warehouses and walk-ups hark back to the 1960s and 70s, when jumbo jets roared in low over the roofs, rattling windows and setting clotheslines aflutter.
With airport-imposed height restrictions no longer an issue, the six faceless skyscrapers of the Sky Tower - an early redevelopment in an area that's one of the most affordable in Kowloon - reach up more than 50 storeys. The nearby Harbour Plaza 8 Degrees hotel provides a striking counterpoint to the subdivided tong lau where rooms cost HK$78 a night.
The park on the road, once on the coastline, provides a link to ancient history, containing a 'monument' - a fragment of the Song Wong Toi boulder - dating back to the final days of the Song dynasty, in the 13th century.
Pet stores and mechanics' shops line the tightly packed streets next to Sky Tower. At Kong Kee Garage (17 Luk Ming Street, tel: 2337 3572), Mr Wan is elbow-deep in the engine of a white 40s MG saloon. There is a red 60s Volvo sports car behind it, with a vintage Mini and orange roadster to its side. 'I'm just fixing them for my friends,' he says, adding he hopes the neighbourhood doesn't change too fast. 'There's a lot of interesting stuff around here.'
On Ma Tau Kok Road, gasworks tower over the red brick buildings of the Cattle Depot, now an artists' village. If you ignore the hulking Grand Waterfront development behind the former slaughterhouse, and the fact the place is no longer awash in bovine blood, it's a scene largely unchanged since the 60s.
