Shanghai Dashijie, or the Great World Entertainment Center, was one of the reasons that the Chinese coastal city used to be called “the Paris of the East” in the early 20th century.
A black and white picture of the center taken in 1937, the year Japan launched its full-scale invasion of China.
Founded in 1917, the entertainment complex once consisted of an opera house, a cinema, a playground, a shopping mall and restaurants – everything one would associate with a modern leisure center in big cities today – and soon became the most frequented joint by locals as well as expats.
Surviving shelling during the Second World War and the political turbulence of the 1960s and 70s, the landmark building had lived on only to see its glory outshone by new urban shopping malls and eventually, its doors shut for good amid the 2003 SARS epidemic.
A parade near the Dashijie Center celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China, 1949.
After some “ups and downs”, the site’s renovation is planned to be completed in 2017, according to local media, before which a trial opening period kicks off on December 28.
