The Taipei City Government has halted a project to build new sewer covers after activists pushing for the preservation of historic structures discovered a more-than-a-century-old sewage system.
Taipei Historic Prisons and Cultural Assets Protection Union convener Liang Yin-min (梁蔭民) said his colleagues in November last year discovered what he believes are Qing Dynasty-era stone bricks originally used to build the Taipei City Walls along a drain close to Hangzhou S Road, where work to mend broken drainage system covers was taking place.
Soon after Japan took over Taiwan in 1895, it tore down the Taipei City Walls and used the materials to build public infrastructure, including a drainage system, which he said sits right underneath the site of the now suspended project to fix the sewer covers.
Liang said that after examining maps made during the Japanese colonial era, he concluded that the drainage system likely covered an area comprising Hangzhou S Road, Jinhua Street, Lane 25 of Hangzhou S Road and the premises of Chunghwa Post Co.
The drainage system was built in 1904 and was of great historic value because it was among the first public sanitation systems built in Taiwan, and it was used by colonial-era prison officials, who were housed in dormitories on Jinhua Street, he said.
Although most of the dormitories have been demolished, four buildings remain on the street today, Liang said.
“The first structures the Japanese built after they arrived in Taiwan were prisons, which are historically invaluable as they serve as a reminder that we were once under Japanese rule,” he said.
Taipei New Construction Office official Tseng Chun-chieh (曾俊傑) said his agency suspended the work last week when they learned about the presence of the historic facility.
The department and the group on Tuesday reached a consensus to employ removable zinc-coated grids to cover the sewers, instead of concrete covers, so that experts and historians can easily observe the drainage system and enter it to examine the bricks closely, he said.
While part of the drainage system can be preserved by the Taipei City Government, the area where the facility is situated has been set aside for a central government-led urban renewal project, Tseng said.
Liang approved of the agency’s handling of the matter.
He said he had asked the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs to conduct test excavations to ascertain the scope of the drainage system.
It would be difficult to preserve the facility in its entirety due to constructions planned in the area, but his group would endeavor to retain as much of it as possible, he said.
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