Amos Bird Building North Bund – “immoveable cultural relic” demolished

Despite repeated state media claims that Shanghai is intent on protecting its heritage it is reported that the former Amos Bird building on the Bund has been demolished. The structure on the North Bund was built in 1921 and was the egg packing and storage warehouse for the company. It was classified as an “immovable cultural relic” in 2011 but this does not appear to have made any difference once the developers decided they wanted it gone. Before 1949 the building was the largest refrigeration and storage site in the city. Amos Bird had operated on the site in one form or another since the First World War.

In the Chinese media the Amos Bird has been described as a “British Company” but I believe it was, in fact, an American company and was the Shanghai off-shoot of the HJ Keith dried egg company from Minneapolis, Minnesota but was registered and HQed in Boston. They sent a certain Morris Ovson, a Russian, to Shanghai in 1917 to establish a business producing dried and frozen eggs for export. He started the Amos Bird business in China. It was later incorporated into the Armour & Co. meat processing company of Chicago in 1929, as the newspaper article from August 1928 below shows.

Apologies but I don’t have a photo of the building in my records…if anyone does obviously I’d like to see some old shots of the building?