Old Shanghai - New Shanghai

The same day we hit the Shanghai Art Museum Biennial, we also toured 3 of the 1930's era Art Deco buildings nearby: The Park Hotel, The YMCA, and The Grand Theatre. It was an unofficial tour. Walk in like you belong and see how far you get. ;-)

If you remember, the current Shanghai Art Museum is the former clubhouse of the Shanghai Race Track (horse racing).

Here is an old photo (from the 1930's) looking from the clubhouse to the Park Hotel - the tallest building in Asia when it was built in the 30's and the tallest building in Shanghai until the mid 1980's. The Grand Theatre is to the left, the YMCA to the right.



Here is a photo I took 2 weeks ago. See if you can find the 5 buildings in this photo that are in the 1930's photo.....The building in lower left foreground is a Starbucks. The greenery to the right is People's Park.




And a closer view of the Park Hotel (left) and YMCA (right). The YMCA still operates as a hotel and sports club.


And finally the Grand Theatre. A fine Art Deco movie theatre. The usher let us "sneak a peek" from the balcony. Yes, the recent X-Men sequel is showing - dubbed in Chinese.