Quarry Bay

Quarry Bay is an area beneath Mount Parker in the Eastern District of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Quarry Bay is bordered by Sai Wan Ho to the east, Mount Parker to the south, North Point to the west, and Victoria Harbour to the north.

Quarry Bay is a residential and business district in Hong Kong. One Island East, the seventh tallest building in Hong Kong, is located in Quarry Bay. Some government departments such as the Accounting and Financial Reporting Council have relocated their offices from Central and Wan Chai to Quarry Bay over the years, and some multinational companies have their offices located in the district, such as Ernst & Young, BNP Paribas, LVMH and Boston Consulting Group, etc. Cityplaza and Kornhill Plaza, being one of the largest shopping malls on Hong Kong Island is at Quarry Bay.

With dense population as well as developed economic and commercial activities in the district, Quarry Bay has a considerable traffic demand. It is one of the transportation hubs in Hong Kong. There are two MTR stations in the district, being Quarry Bay Station and Taikoo Station. Quarry Bay Station is the intersection of the Island line and Tseung Kwan O line. Other transportation means in the district include buses, minibuses, and trams.

The 1819 edition of the Gazetteer of Sun On County (嘉慶版新安縣志) did not mention today's Quarry Bay. Historians such as Anthony Kwok Kin Siu suggested Quarry Bay was a remote area before British colonial time.

During colonial Hong Kong times, the Hakka stonemasons settled in the area after the British arrival.

This area was a bay where rock from the hillsides were quarried and transported by ship for building construction or road building. The Chinese name Tsak Yue Chung (鰂魚涌) reveals that it was a small stream where crucian carp (鰂魚) could be found in the 19th century. The English name was Arrow Fish Creek. The original bay has disappeared since land reclamation has taken place, and was about 700 m (770 yd) from the current coastline.

The eastern part of Quarry Bay, namely Quarry Point [yue], was largely owned by Swire and therefore many places and facilities are named after the company's Chinese name, Taikoo. The river originally flowed into the bay, however it was shut off from the sea with the construction of the Tai Koo Reservoir [zh-tw] to supply fresh water to the Taikoo Dockyard, the Taikoo Sugar factory at Tong Chong Street (糖廠街), and later the Swire Coca-Cola factory at Greig Road (基利路) and Yau Man Street (佑民街). The upper course of the river was converted into a cement-paved catchwater, and the lower course is the present-day Quarry Bay Street (鰂魚涌街), with the original estuary near the Quarry Bay Street – King's Road junction.

In the mid-1980s, the hillside was converted into Kornhill apartment buildings, the reservoir into Mount Parker Lodge [zh-tw] (康景花園) apartment buildings, and the Dockyard into Taikoo Shing. The Coca-Cola factory is now apartment Kornville (康蕙花園), and Taikoo Sugar is now the Taikoo Place, a commercial hub.