Astor House: Bar Entrance To The Left

From the previous photo we are turning to the right and we step five years into the future. By late 1910 The Astor House was under construction in its final form, extending the much smaller previous building with several new floors, new restaurants and banquet halls.

The postcard here does not lead with the subject of our series, but with a feature of the construction process, presenting the bamboo scaffolding as a Chinese method of hoarding with "no nails used."

The construction fence helpfully features a sign, and we can zoom in a little bit:

"Site of the extension to the Astor House Hotel
Temporary entrance Astor Road →
← Bar"

Astor Road is the short road connecting Whangpoo Road past the Astor House with Broadway running behind this block and we can see the very beginning of that street just beyond the hotel at the very right edge of this photo. The hotel had a wing running all along Astor Road, which was part of this extension work.

I don't believe I've ever seen a photo of Astor Road or the German Church, which supposedly must have had its entrance on that street.

The temporary bar entrance must be just to the left of this photo, as the bar on the ground floor was situated there later together with a buffet restaurant, with their combined entrance exactly where the sign stands in this photo.

The construction appears to be nearly finished behind the scaffolding, as the final roof line with its distinctive striped chimneys is visible above. So this photo is most likely from late summer 1910, as the construction was finished in November 1910 and the grand reopening was in January 1911.

For the next photo, we will jump across Suzhou Creek to take a look at the freshly reopened hotel.