Preservation activists yesterday called on the Ministry of Culture to intervene to save two 82-year-old warehouses in the Port of Keelung, which have witnessed much of Taiwan’s migration history, but are threatened by development projects.
In the past week, preservationists, including residents, artists, writers and historians, have been protesting against a project drafted by the Keelung City Government to tear down the two warehouses on the port’s west pier. They are the only two remaining buildings of a group of eight warehouses built in 1932 that once stood in the area.
“It was really shocking when I heard Keelung city officials saying that a warehouse is a warehouse, not a historic building — this shows that our history education is a total failure,” Chang Tien-wan (張典婉), a writer and historian, told a press conference held at the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chang said that during the Japanese colonial period, many Japanese entered Taiwan through the warehouses — which also served as terminal buildings for ferry lines — and they also left through the buildings when they were reptriated after World War II.
“Between 1945 and 1949, at the port’s peak, more than 50 ferry boats docked at Keelung every day from Guangzhou, Xiamen, Wenzhou, Shanghai and other Chinese cities,” she said. “So this is also where many Chinese — including civilians and Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] troops — first set foot on Taiwanese soil when they fled [here from China].”
Therefore, Chang said, buildings with such historic significance should not be torn down, as they are not mere warehouses.
Neil Peng (馮光遠), a writer, compared the two warehouses to Ellis Island in New York City.
“The West 2 and West 3 warehouses are like Ellis Island in New York — they are the entrance to the nation, where many immigrants arrived through the two buildings,” he said. “In 1954, Ellis Island was turned into an immigration museum and descendants of European immigrants can check their ancestry at the museum. That is what we should turn the two warehouses into.”
Peng said that history is important to a country and he is often saddened to see buildings with historical significance torn down to make way for modern towers.
“We have enough high-rise apartment complexes and commercial towers, but we need more historical buildings to be preserved,” Peng said, urging Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), who is also an author and has written about the preservation of historical buildings, to intervene.
Wang Chieh (王傑), a preservation activist who grew up in Keelung, said he was amazed to see pictures of Keelung during the 1930s and 1940s.
“According to the documents I’ve found, it took the Japanese 45 years to plan and build the city. It was once a city full of European buildings, museums and a canal with beautiful bridges over it,” Wang said. “Sadly, none of what appeared in the pictures still existed when I was born.”
“Keelung as I know it is a devastated city, it is a city that people around the nation make fun of. We should do something about it. We should do something for ourselves and the generations to come,” he added.
The city government originally planned to flatten both West 2 and West 3 warehouses on Monday, but the demolition was halted due to strong opposition.
Lung visited the buildings earlier in the week and said that the two buildings have the potential to be designated as historical buildings, but instead of organizing a meeting to evaluate their historical value, the ministry decided to allocate NT$2.5 million (US$82,600) to the Keelung City Government to conduct research on the warehouses.
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