Katya Knyazeva's scrapbook

This 1934 photographic guide to Shanghai's clocks and clock towers shows the Custom House, General Post Office, China United Association, Race Club, Kawamura Memorial, Sincere Department Store, Jiaotong (Chiao-Tung) University, Ziccawei Observatory and Lai-Wah Co. (hi-res).


There were other clock towers, such the one at St. John's University:


...and Kiangwan IRC Race Club (destroyed in 1937):

New site of city archives opens as China's largest

Needless to say, everything one can access at Shanghai archives has passed rigorous censorship curatorship, and yet – exposure to historical materials should inspire new good research.

https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_13064763

The vast majority the buildings in the list can be visited on ordinary days as well, and an increasingly large part is located remote suburbs, which is synchronous with the decentralization agenda of the recent years.

Aerial photos, collected over the years in digital archives, photography exhibitions and online auctions, are displayed here: https://sites.google.com/view/shanghai-old-town/aerial-photography

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The recent emergence of this fantastically sharp image of exquisite carvings on the overhead beam inside the noble building at 19 Xuexi Jie 学西街19号 (aka No. 1 Lane 30 Laodaoqian Street 老道前街30弄1号) prompted us to create a page for this building and its environment: https://sites.google.com/view/shanghai-old-town/sw/xuexi-street

Rebranded as Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, 文化和自然遗产日 returns to Shanghai on June 12 this year: http://whlyj.sh.gov.cn/wbzx/20210528/c2b226c4998b4b37933cf0e5a3f26ee5.html Some historic buildings are supposed to open their doors for the public, but we never know which ones and how many until the last minute. Overall, the number of interesting venues has declined, as the focus has shifted from landmarks to handicrafts and opera (and... nature?).

This is a work in progress, but some sections are nearly completed.
Historic and modern maps, from 1524 to 2020: https://sites.google.com/view/shanghai-old-town/maps
Timeline of the old town: https://sites.google.com/view/shanghai-old-town/timeline

Interesting auction find – "Alexander Vertinsky with friends in a restaurant in Shanghai, 17 December 1943."



The back of the photo has the word "Кавказ" crossed out and corrected to "Шанхай". The interior, indeed, does not look like the Kavkaz Restaurant – more like the Renaissance. The date could be a little off: according to the memoir of Lydia Vertinskaya, the family left China for the USSR on 4 November 1943, on the Dairen Maru.

Among its many original insights, this article by Duncan Hewitt, on the corporate history of Brunner Mond & ICI (卜内门洋行) in Shanghai, shows unique old and contemporary photos of the International Settlement. One of them is this little-known residential compound Crescent Avenue (蛾眉月路), off Yu Yuen Road, now at Lane 1203 Yuyuan Road 愚园路1203弄.

Illustration from the article, showing one of the Crescent Avenue buildings, at No. 23:

Click to see the location on PastVu.

A friend brought to my attention this amusing map produced for the use of the American Marines in Shanghai. I particularly like the DDs advert on top. The DDs Café-Restaurant and Night Club on Avenue Joffre was in operation from the end of 1936. The northern branch at 870 Bubbling Well Road opened in 1938, which means the map was published in 1938 or later.




And at the Henry-Doumer-Lorton triangle (No. 60) you find... women?