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Nadnerb, a commenter on our "Center of Shanghai" post from yesterday, pointed out that the trapezoidal building in this Google Maps satellite shot was the old Jingwen Flower Market:
[I]ts just a skeleton of concrete pillars and wire now. The whole area west of maoming nan lu is being ripped up. Do you know why? I heard it was for some music plaza or block or something.
The flower market came down in November and, yes, the latest we heard was that it would be replaced with some kind of "music plaza," whatever that means. The west side of the Maoming Nan Lu bar street is also supposed to fall to the wrecking ball, we hear. We walked through the area on Monday and it seems some bars on that side have already closed down, although that also just might be the normal turnover cycle of the area.
We also popped in the old flower market location from the Shaanxi Lu side, and took this photo:
And here is what it used to look like:
Also on Shanghaiist:
RIP: Jingwen Flower Market
Boom goes the dynamite! (and other Shanghai landmark news)
Photos from Shanghai Diaries and whatsjamesdoing.com.
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It sucks that building is being torn down huh, someone told me it used to be an old grey hound race track.
Wandering around the desolate construction site at night and imagining the old school scene of punters going mad and dogs flying after fake bunnies in that cool building kinda sums up how depressing the whole architectural "look to the future" attitude this city has adopted is.
On the plus side it does allow for some pretty cool photos.
I hope the music plaza does it justice.
It's supposed to be turned into a theater, which is much better than say a luxury high rise apartment complex. It's nice to see the city trying to improve its cultural options, even if it means tearing down an old favorite. Whatever, the flower market was getting too expensive anyway; vendors were always ripping me off left and right.
It was indeed originally the Canidrome dog racing track that could reputedly hold 50,000 spectators. The Morriss family, who lived on the Morriss Estate, now the Ruijin complex and Guest House, were big dog owners and could conveniently walk their muts over the road.
Arguably even more of a loss was the building at the side which was the old Canidrome Ballroom where Buck Clayton famously played before having a fight with the lowlife bouncer from the Venus Club, Jack Riley.