The Fox Tower, Peking, 1913

Three rather interesting views of the Dongbianmen (east gate) Watchtower, or the Fox Tower as it was known to foreigners in Peking, which any of you who have read my book Midnight in Peking will know well. These three pictures are by the American photographer John David Zumbrun (1875-1949) who started his own studio – Camera Craft Company – on Legation Street (Dongjiaominxiang).

The first shows the view from some distance and that before 1949 the networks of canals of the Grand Canal were still surrounding the watchtower. The second shows camels passing by the Fox Tower and the third is the view west from the raised base of the tower towards the Legation Quarter, Chienmen (Qianmen) and what is now Tiananmen Square. If you visit the tower today you can see this same view, with some of the wall still intact and what was the Grand Canal is now a major railway line out of Beijing the post 1949 Beijing Railway Station.