This Old House: Soong Ching Ling edition

There appears to be a push (or maybe a slight nudge) to save an old house on Taojiang Lu that for four years in the 1940s was occupied by Soong Ching Ling, also known as Madame Sun or Sun Yat Sen's wife. The two story villa, which is very close to O'Malley's, is currently occupied by 40 workers from the Shanghai Qianggu Construction Engineering Company.

From the story:

After 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded, Soong, who was also honorary chairwoman of the country, moved into 1843 Huaihai Road M. - which is widely known as Soong's former residence and a famed tourist attraction.

The Taojiang Road villa, which is less known, was later occupied by more than 20 residents, causing severe damage to the internal structure.

In 2001, the Xufang Group - a government-run property company - sold the villa to a local architecture design tycoon after relocating all the residents, the villa managers said.

On a tour of the villa yesterday, a Shanghai Daily reporter found the eight rooms filled with bunk beds. The window frames are rusty, the roof plasters cracked and old wires in disorder.
Tang Wenzhong, a manager of the Qianggu company, said the house will revert to a private residence.

Wang Anshi, head of the renovation department of the Shanghai Housing and Land Resources Administrative Bureau, said: "We were not aware of the historic importance of the villa. It's possible for us to classify it as a historic site under city protection."