Coming Down Alert – Wujiang Road East End

Shanghai’s Wujiang Road, the former Love Lane, has already been gutted completely at its western end and turned into a pedestrian street of such delights as Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Krispy Kreme donuts and other dreary chains all the way along. That end of the street now lacks any charm whatsoever, has the usual square badges on patrol and could be anywhere from Ealing to Idaho (actually, to be honest, I have no idea what goes on in Idaho – it just seemed to scan quite well) – the developers won. But not content they are determined seemingly to take down the remainder of the street – the east end of Wujiang Road – which is still very popular with people for its cheap food stalls and snacks vendors. Presumably we are to get more concrete, more chains and more blandness.

As you can see the shops facing on to Nanjing Road are now empty and boarded up as, it appears, are the premises and homes above. It is just possible a refit is planned but in the past it has been announced that the whole street is coming down and the west end went entirely with nothing left. Here’s a few highlights of the old Love Lane from my forthcoming Old Shanghai A-Z, out some time next year:

‘In the 1860s Love Lane was a secluded lane following a creek to the West and North of the old British Country Club and known by the Chinese as Diagonal Bridge Road. It became a useful cut through and was Shanghai’s first toll road. Then from the 1920s it really took of and became one of the International Settlement’s foremost streets of sin. Despite its romantic name everything was for sale on Love Lane. The street was home to several high-class brothels including Madam Margaret Kennedy’s famous mansion sized bordello catered to taipans and the wealthy and only employing European girls. Kennedy operated a ‘never on Sundays’ rule and gave her girls a day off for the Sabbath.

The Medical Massage Clinic next door may also not have been all it at first appeared either. Love Lane regulars flocked to the St. Anna Ballroom, known locally as ‘Santa Anna’s’ where patrons nightly got lively to Earl Whaley and his Red Hot Syncopaters (below), an all-black swing band from Seattle that got fed up with the racism and segregation of America, moved to Shanghai and became the resident house band at the St. Anna in 1934 and stayed in Shanghai until 1937. The St. Anna was also home to radio station XQHA – ‘all big band music all the time.’