Function
The pier's primary role was ceremonial. It was the traditional landing place of successive governors, who would arrive at Central on board the official Governor's Yacht which would dock at Queen's Pier. From the 1960s, governors would inspect a guard of honour at Edinburgh Place, followed by the official swearing-in at City Hall.
HM The Queen officially landed there on 4 May 1975 on her first visit, after arriving by plane at Kai Tak Airport. The Prince and Princess of Wales landed there in November 1989.
The pier's secondary role was as a public pier, where pleasure craft were allowed to dock. Tour boats offering a view of the Kowloon side of the harbour used the pier for passenger boarding. Up to 1978, it was the winning line for the annual cross-harbour swimming race. As the ceremonies declined, the pier's secondary purpose became the main one: people met and strolled in the area; some fished.
On 26 April 2007, the pier was officially closed in order to facilitate land reclamation in Central.
Read more about this topic: Queen's Pier
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)