A Sneak Around Broadway Mansions with the FCC

Posted: July 20th, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Among the architectural jewels in the crown (those that survive anyway!) in Shanghai, Broadway Mansions must be one of the most prized. There’s no doubt it’s a tad shabby these days compared to its pre-1949 heyday but it still stands majestic in its unabashed modernism at the northern side of the Garden Bridge. Broadway Mansions – the ninth floor was the home of the legendary Foreign Correspondents Club when hacks really knew how to be hacks and journalism was a lifestyle rather than an MA and a route to management; several floors above Russian gangsters ran one of the most louche casinos in Shanghai; and, for a time, both the Japanese and then the US Army occupied the buildings with all the coming and goings you can imagine from soldiers and what they bring back at night!

Now it’s a little down on its uppers and under appreciated like most of old Shanghai. There’s a hotel, but it’s far from one of Shanghai’s best. A run of the mill restaurant, overpriced curios shop…but perhaps the old corridors are still redolent of the atmosphere of Shanghai’s heyday? Well, members of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club have the opportunity to find out this week. They’re having their AGM in the building and getting a tour from the current management and (how happy they must be!) a few anecdotes of the old hack pack’s antics from yours truly. Worth the annual membership fee right there I reckon!

Details below – if any good photo opportunities present themselves then I’ll post on the interior….

Who’d have thought it – members of the current Shanghai hack pack venturing north of Suzhou Creek…that’s worth a picture in itself!

The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents’ Club Presents:

2011 Annual General Meeting and
Tour of Broadway Mansions

Thursday, July 21th, 5:30pm (Formal meeting starts at 6:30)

Broadway Mansions, No.20 North Suzhou Road, Hongkou District

Please join us to elect the SFCC’s new board and enjoy free drinks with colleagues and friends!  Two free drinks and snacks will be provided to all current members.  A third free drink will be provided to members who renew their membership on the spot. (Correspondent and media members: 500 RMB; Associate members: 800 RMB.)

The Annual General Meeting will start at 6:30 p.m.

The list of candidates for board seats is below. If you cannot attend the meeting, please send one of the attached absentee ballots based on your category of membership.  Completed absentee voting forms must reach us by 12 noon on Thursday, July 21th.

Before officially kicking off the 2011 AGM, we’re happy to offer members a step back into the the history of the foreign correspondent community in Shanghai with a tour of Broadway Mansions, a famous FCC headquarters and colorful abode for resident journalists in Shanghai before the founding of the People’s Republic. We are scheduled to receive a welcome from a spokesman from the building’s current owner (the city-owned Hengshan Group), an introduction to the building’s history and architecture by a Broadway Mansions Hotel executive, and a comparison of life for Shanghai-based foreign correspondents then and now by the Shanghai FCC’s own Paul French, author of “Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao.”  We will see the floor where the Shanghai FCC was once headquartered, among other highlights.  We believe this will be the largest Shanghai FCC return to Broadway Mansions in decades, reflecting Shanghai’s renewed economic clout in the world and the vitality of the FCC community in the city today.

The Broadway Manisons tour will start at 5:30p.m.

Admission: Free for paid-up members. This event is members only. Members whose dues are not current can renew on the spot.

Note: You must RSVP before noon on Thursday, July 21 to be admitted. This is necessary so we can do our best to manage the flow of cocktails and food that evening.

RSVP now! We hope to see you for a memorable night on Thursday.

RSVP: fcc.sfcc@gmail.com

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