Coming Down Alert – The Last Vestiges of Jukong Road

Jukong Road and Jukong Alley (often spelt Ju Kong) were once legendary names in Shanghai. Consider this enticing description from 1936’s Shanghai: High Lights, Low Lights and Tael Lights, the wonderfully irreverent guide book to the city’s seemier side by Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson:

Just the other side of the Settlement gate, and in the Chinese late-closing area, is Jukong Alley, scene of the Venus Cabaret, already described. Here are probably the greatest collection of honky-tonk cafes ever assembled on one street. Most of them are Russian, some are Japanese, all of them something extra special in what the Well Dressed Man is avoiding this season. That is, outside of the Venus, and an especially choice resort, called the Red Rose, quite popular with the Russians.

Just beyond the Settlement boundaries (and with dubious police control), in the so-called Northern External Roads was Jukong Road (now Zhongxing Road). It has seen a lot of redevelopment since 1936. First the Japanese bombed the hell out of the area around the Shanghai Railway Station and destroyed many of the buildings. Since then of course that area of Hongkew up past the old Paoshan Road (Baoshan Road) and the new look railway station has been further redeveloped with blocks of flats and some rather ugly cement block buuldings. The street, now widened and shortened is rather nondescript with drab 1950s workers blocks, 1990s wanna-be middle class compounds and non-architecture architecture of the grey block variety.

However, it was once vibrant. As well as the nightclubs drawn to the illegality of the area there were some legitimate and well known businesses – I’ve blogged before about The Teddy Bakery for instance. There was also quite a lot of traditional low level lilong residences on the street and some did survive both the war and the initial waves of Shanghai’s “redevelopment”. However, a stroll along the street today (which is now truncated at the eastern end (towards Sichuan Road North, which has still has some nicely restored properties in the vicinity, and no longer crossed by the railway line as it used to be – though the site of the old Tiantong Railway Station is commemorated with a plaque) reveals that the few remaining older residences are mostly now slated for demolition. Once these go Jukong Road will be completely obliterated effectively except for a few, still quite charming lanes (as shown in the third picture below).

 a block facing Zhongxing Road coming down…

A larger lane that is also in the process of demolition…

One of just a handful of the smaller lanes left that appear safe for now.