Today’s Hongqiao Road 虹桥路 - wide, modern and traffic-ridden - is quite different from the 1930s, when it was Hungjao Road, “the one and only modern suburb in the city,” the location of wealthy foreigners’ villas. There aren’t any detailed archival maps of the area, so it is often difficult to match the old addresses and photographs with the present ( Read more... )

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1920s:

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...as presented by the Zikawei Observatory in 1927. The thin line shows the 70-year average (of daily highs or noonday measurements, not averages, I think); the thick line - the year 1927. One third of all the days the heat reaches 97 F (36 C) or higher, and one day it hits 100 F (37,8 C). (This is not the correct way to read statistics, but) an ( Read more... )

This cute design of a weather forecast in the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, October 1940, framed by the two spires of the St. Ignatius Cathedral:

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Old Xujiahui (or Siccawei) has not always been the gigantic five-street intersection that it is today. The roads used to be narrower, lined with two-story shops, and there was a creek running through the area. I was reminded of that creek when I came across this Harrison Forman's photo:

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I was looking for something else, but as it always happens, I came across these interesting images of what Xujiahui was like before my time.


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Old photos of Xujiahui and west French Concession. The neighborhood was noticeably better.

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