The Street Formerly Known As Wulumuqi Road

As Wulumuqi Road street signs were taken down in the wake of protests that began early Sunday morning, rumors were flying that the street name may be changed–again. Although most of the street signs do remain, it seems like a good time to take a look at the century-long history of this street, and the different names it’s gone by over the years.

The street we know today as Wulumuqi Road once had three different names and ran through both the former French Concession and the International Settlement. Laid out between 1918-1921, just after World War I, it was developed during the boom years between the wars, Shanghai’s Golden Age, when money was plentiful and Art Deco was all the rage. The name was changed to Wulumuqi Road after the Communist victory in 1949. Wulumuqi is the pinyin for Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and until the 1990s, the street was called Urumqi Road.