Chuanban Hutong in Happier Times

As I noted yesterday it seems the bulldozers have finally gone into the old Peking Badlands and are taking down Chuanban Hutong, at least the western end of the lane which housed many of the most notorious dives of the old days. However, all that sin and depravity, dope dens and flop houses was shut down in 1949 and the old denizens of the Badlands either died, drifted off or were thrown out – the last people associated with the Badlands still around after 1949 that I know of were sent back to the Soviet Union (unable to get visas or passports for anywhere else and not a good fate as they were all White Russians, a group Stalin was not overly enamored with) in the mid-1950s. In the 1950s the area was populated by construction workers largely tearing down the city walls and building the Beijing Railway Station, track and access roads. This, along with the redevelopment of the old Hataman Street (Chongwenmen Street) left the old Badlands of Chuanpan and Hougou Hutongs rather isolated.

Slightly later the area filled up again as a community – mostly Xin, or New Beijingers – I’ve never found anyone around there who goes back further than the late 1950s. The area’s rather run down nature (though by no means were/are most of the properties on Chuanban and Hougou Hutongs slums at all – many are good solid structures built well in the late 1920s or 1930s – overcrowded perhaps, but not wrecks) and proximity to the Railway Station meant that the area has had its share of transients and been home to cheap hotels and the like. Just as in the 1920s and 1930s the hutong just to the north (and also one assumes now under threat), Suzhou (formerly Soochow) Hutong, was and is a haven for street food lovers. Here’s some photos from Chuanban Hutong in happier times a few years ago before the evictions and demolition.