A flattened part of Shimen Yi Lu (石门一路)
I was standing on a rooftop of an old building, now inhabited mostly by construction workers who have successfully flattened a large block of old villas along Shimen…
Disappearing, Gone
Echoes and the crunch of broken glass
What is the appeal of an abandoned building? A common question posed by every other person who happens to be squatting or doing brisk recycling scrap business, to…
Small town Shanghai: Who’s left?
You don’t have to wander too far from Shanghai to find interesting small towns, that is, ones that have not converted into tourist villages of Disneyland proportions. An…
Walling the site
I stood completely disoriented in a vast track of demolished land running along Gongping Lu (公平路) and Tangshan Lu (唐山路). I was retracing an old longtang neighborhood but…
Retrospect: No longer their city
I received a text message recently I thought note worthy. It was from this old man in his 60s who was living in Hongkou, a site along Haimen Lu (海门路) I…
The world as their playground
Well detailed here, the area surrounding Shangchuan Huiguan (商船会馆) in Old Town, also known as Merchant Shipping Hall, has been completely flattened and the radius of demolition continues expanding…
A tell tale sign of what used to be
This may seem unremarkable at first glance, but the location was previously a circular turret building which once housed Horn’s Imbiss Stube (Horn’s Snack Bar) and Cafe Atlantic, common…
Next door, next to go
If you walked by too quickly, you would have missed her. A crowd had gathered to watch an ongoing demolition of a row of old houses. Some were…
Moving out and moving on
It was the same story. The area by Lanyi Dock Road (赖义码头) was half-demolished and residents have more or less emptied out. This family had over 20 people…
Out with the old
It is not uncommon to bump into lone individuals surveying old longtangs that are undergoing demolition – the occasional photographer who quietly weaves in and out of shadowed…