The Curious Case of Shanghai’s Boarded Up Streets – Part 2

Another interesting series of now boarded up streets is around Yunnan Lu South and Ninghai Lu East. These, and adjacent streets that run at the back of the Great World (Da Shijie), are interesting as they were mostly created around 1915 when the old Yanjing Creek and its surrounding slums were finally (after 60 years of complaints!) cleared and covered.
Ninghai Lu west of Xizang Lu was cleared in the early 2000s of shikumen/lilong and a park created running alongside the Gaojia (built earlier with a lot of protest about clearances at the time).

Anyway many will remember that Yunnan Lu and the crossroads with Ninghai Lu was a vibrant all-day/night cluster of Uyghur restaurants and foodstalls until a few years ago. Before WW2 it was recorded as an exciting area where many of the performers and “ladies of the night” who plied their trades at the Great World lived. Now the area’s future is anyone’s guess…..