Grab a Ming or Qing Brick on Shanghai’s Zizhong Road

A very Shanghai story today I feel. in its remorseless drive to destroy anything “old” and “historical” Shanghai has been moving to bulldoze the old residential lanes (we’re getting down to very low numbers of old lanes now left in the city) of the former Settlement and Frenchtown, Huangpu District government has turned the diggers and wreckers on Lane 60 Zizhong Road (formerly rue de Siemen, a once mainly residential road in Frenchtown, now close to the faux Xintiandi complex). However, destruction was delayed (not entirely halted of course) after hundreds of bricks dating to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties were found. How these bricks came to be part of structures that mostly date from the 1920s is of interest historically of course. Some of the bricks were inscribed with the Chinese characters “Fifth Year of Xianfeng” (1855) and “Shanghai City Wall.”

However, problems then ensued when word got out and people arrived at the site to steal the bricks which can, apparently, be resold for about 1,000 yuan (US$162). A little profit from heritage is apparently OK, but leaving them in place not so much. This of course follows on people who were perhaps wanting a nice image of old Shanghai put up on Suzhou Creek for free for their wall, but actually probably just wanted the scrap metal for resale. Zizhong Road has already been effectively gutted with architecture of the banal such as the Lakeville Regency gated community thrown up. Now the bricks are mostly gone who knows where (try Alibaba perhaps?) and the rest of the street to follow.

PS: The current road name is derived from General Zhang Zizhong, commander in chief of the 33rd Army Group of the KMT, who died fighting the Japanese. He was a communist but his forces were incorporated into the larger Chinese army during the war.

rue de Siemen/Zizhong Road – towards the end of its days