Shanghai’s Little White House
They call it the “Little White House,” and it was one of the finest grand mansions of old Shanghai. Still is. Constructed by a company whose buildings would become icons, this gracious belle époque mansion on Fenyang Lu never housed Presidents, but for nearly half a century after it was built, ...
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The Forgotten Bride in the Shanghai Lane
We found her in a lane called Chusan Liegh (Zhoushan Li 舟山弄), in the old Jewish ghetto. Who was she, this elegant bride wearing heart-shaped earrings and a fairytale wedding gown? Why was she left here? Who would leave a wedding portrait behind? The lane, on Zhoushan Lu in Hongkou, ...
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AstraZeneca, Shanghai, and the fall of the Qing Dynasty
by Duncan Hewitt // You may – just possibly – have heard the name AstraZeneca recently…But did you know about its Shanghai connection? One of the pharmaceutical company’s forerunners had a close association with China in the first half of the 20th century, leaving an architectural legacy in ...
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Bookshelf: Rumors from Shanghai with Amy Sommers
In April, the Historic Shanghai Book Club read Rumors from Shanghai, a historical thriller set in 1940s Shanghai, so we sat down with author Amy Sommers to find out more about hidden histories and untold stories, the city as inspiration, surprise discoveries, and more. Get the book: In Shanghai, ...
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The ’20s Gala: Farewell, 2020, Hello, 1920s!
It was a 1930s photo of a grand soirée in the ballroom of the Cercle Sportif Français that inspired the “Farewell 2020, Hello, 1920s” Gala. Hu Ping, the founder of the Shanghai Culture Society, showed us the photo, and the rest … is Gala history. Left: The inspiration. Right: The '20s ...
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Chin Woo Athletic Association Buildings
“Historic Beauty to be Torn Down”, blared the headline. It was August 5, 2011, and it was clear that time was of the essence, so despite the sweltering Shanghai heat, I headed down to 379 Huimin Road, at the corner of Dalian Road, in Yangpu District. There, I discovered an island of ...
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The Early Shanghai Photographs of Pierre Gendron
Sometime between the 1880s and early 1900s, a Frenchman named Pierre Gendron photographed Shanghai. And miraculously, his glass stereoscopic slides, some of the earliest photographs of Shanghai in existence, have survived. As a banker based in Hué (which was then French Indochina), Pierre traveled ...
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