The Kaohsiung City Government said it is mulling turning the historic landmark, the North Gate casemates into a scenic spot for visitors to view the sunset and Kaohsiung Harbor.
The gate, located in the city’s Gushan District (鼓山), was built by Koxinga’s (鄭成功) son Zheng Jing (鄭經) in 1681 as a watchtower guarding what was then the Cihou (旗后) area.
Although the gate is a municipal historic site, it has been inaccessible to the public for the past 60 years because of a Ministry of National Defense military deployment there.
The city’s Urban Development Bureau said yesterday that the ministry had agreed to allow the city government to open the site overlooking Sizihwan (西子灣) to the public.
The bureau added it would send a proposal to the city’s Cultural Assets Review Board in six months on how to revive the landmark and its neighborhood.
In related news, Urban Spotlight Arcade, another city landmark, was reopened on Saturday after the company managing it ceased trading in July last year because of poor business and a monthly NT$300,000 royalty the company had to pay to the city government.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said the city government had decided to lower the royalty for the site, charging the new company operating the site about 6 percent of its turnover.
The Urban Spotlight Arcade — an illuminated walkway at the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit System’s Central Park Station — was launched during the term of former Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
Chen called the arcade “an enchanting and unique scenic spot,” saying that the city government had come under great pressure to reopen the site since the withdrawal of the company that previously managed it.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
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