Nanjing Road, a Legendary Grand Boulevard
2 min readNanjing Road in the early 21st century
In late 1843, when the gunpowder smoke from the First Opium War still lingered, George Balfour (1809-1894), the first British Convait to arrive. It took him only 10 days to complete the preliminary formalities and set up the consulate, open the port and drew the boundary demarcation for his residence. Balfour took a fancy to a place called “Lijiachang”, literarily Li’s Ground,at the nort by the Yangjing River, Huangpu River,Suzhou Creek and the bnment to allow him to purchase and use land ntof Circuit in Shanghai conceded the land to Great Britain in a tough-minded attitude, the Western coun-e the thick walls of Shanghai, one that was unrecogniz-f Shanghai gradually collapsed.
More and more people flooded intog the 1860s, European-style houses were erected on the Bund, besidents and other bings, all in the Western styles favored by expy. There was a horse racing ring and parks for amusement andrecreation of thes. To facilitate traffic, a new road parallel to the Bund was built and ex-tended to the west. Sir he Concession at that time were named as per the expe-rience of the British and American expatriates, so this road, leading to the Great Garden at the corner of Henan Road was named Park Lane. It was built in accordance with British standard:not appear wide enough rison to the narrow streets in the old city of Shanghai, it was undoubtedly spectacular at that time so the local people called it the”Main Street”When the Shanghai Municipal Council standardized road names in 1864, the resolution was made to name north-south roads in the Settlements after China’s major provinces, and name east-west roads after Chinese trading port cities. As result, the Big Road was officially renamed”Nanjing Road.” It stretched from the Bund to the Mud City Bridge(today’s Tibet Road), a distance of 1.5 kilometers. When World War II ended in 1945, the Settlements were abolished, and the road was renamed as Nanjing East Road whereas its western extension, the former Bubbling Well Road was renamed as Nanjing West Road.
Over one and a half centuries, Nanjing Road has always been known for its prosperity. It is not only.
