Previously unseen photographs of the Normandie Apartments

Today I came across a website with personal photographs from Hennie Warinner's family, and among them there were these shots taken near the Normandie Apartments in 1935. I've seen a number of old photos of the Normandie, but all of them were taken from across the street, to highlight the spectacular rounded corner. These family photos offer a previously unseen angle on the building.




Some photographers, these girls are! The focus is mostly on the background, not on the subjects. Pictures show a sort of a public park, with a lawn, a pond and lots of palm trees where today's Xingguo Rd meets Huaihai Rd. The garage and the "back building" are been built yet in 1935.





This map from 1939 shows the site as empty of buildings save for a little pavilion seen in the middle photo. The seven-story Normandie apartment building overlooking the undeveloped land must was quite an oddity.