These are some pictures showing Taipei in late-1959. To go downtown from Grass Mountain, I'd catch a bus and ride down to a bus stop near the train station. If I was already at the TDC compound, I'd just call a cab and tell the driver to take me to Shiminding (I think that translates to West Gate District).I'd have the cab driver let me out on this circle near the Shin Sheng Theater. The Chinese were big movie fans and there were several theaters in the downtown area showing American, European and Asian movies. Shortly after this picture was taken, "The Big Country" starring Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons opened in the Shin Sheng. The theater occupied a whole city block and had entrances on all four corners. When the movie first opened, people were lined up from each entrance back to the next corner to buy tickets.
Downtown Taipei was always a busy place. Besides the theaters and restaurants, there were shops and street vendors where you could shop for just about anything you could think of.
6 comments:
Steve,
These photos are really in the "award winning category." That was truly a different world that we served in. Nothing at all like Taipei today. Don, thanks for posting these. Really nice again (these are truly a moment in time captured for us to remember).
George (HSA 1965 - 67)
Stev I know I emailed you with my comments,but feel I have to say it here also. Bless you for hanging on to all those old photos. Like George said , this can show people what a different world we went into when we served in Taiwan. It was 180 degrees from the culture we came from.
Sarj
George, Sarj, & Don
Thank you all for the kind words. I'm glad I stumbled on to Don's blog and found some people besides me who are interested in the Taiwan we knew.
By accident I was led to here and saw photos describing the city where I have been living for a lifetime. Thank you so much! I wonder if you happen to have more to share?
Jesse, I'm glad that you're enjoying the photographs here at the USTDC blog.
I post whatever photos people send to me, or those that I manage to find elsewhere on the web. Fortunately, many people have sent dozens of excellent photos and those images are scattered throughout this blog. I will continue posting most everything that I receive.
Regards,
Don
Also, Jesse, if you'd like to view more photos by the same photographer who provided the ones in this article, then go to the search box at the upper LEFT of this page and enter "stev" (without the quotation marks).
Don
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