Astor House: A Fresh Start

By 1911, the Astor House had already enjoyed a fifty-year history at this site, marked by a number of important milestones: The first to offer coal gas lighting in Shanghai, the first to offer electric lighting in Shanghai, the first hotel in China to offer running water. In 1901, the first phone call ever in Shanghai was received at the Astor House.

Many celebrities of the time, including former US President Ulysses S. Grant, had stayed there. It was a first-class destination and known as one of the foremost hotels in East Asia.

With the modernization of the Garden Bridge and the introduction of the tram lines passing the hotel in 1908, it had become time to renovate and extend the hotel. The construction was much-delayed and marred by financial scandal, but work finally ended in late 1910.

The hotel re-opened on 16 January 1911 with much fanfare and was announced in the newspapers in glowing terms: "Largest, Best and Most Modern Hotel in the Far East. Main Dining Room Seats 500 Guests, and is Electrically Cooled. Two hundred Bedrooms with Hot and Cold Baths Attached to Each Room. Cuisine Unexcelled; Service and Attention Perfect; Lounge, Smoking and Reading Rooms; Barber and Photographer on the Premises."

This hand-colorized photo is probably from very early after the re-opening, so from 1911 or 1912, as the garden along the riverfront is still in place before it would turn into the foundation of the Russian Consulate in 1917.

The "ASTOR HOUSE HOTEL" sign on the roof shows up rarely in photos and was most likely there as part of the big re-opening in 1911. It is already gone a few years later as can be seen in the photo below - here the trees in the garden are a little taller, but it still precedes the construction that would destroy the garden in 1917.

This second photo - likely from 1915 or 1916 - is one of the better views of the German Church on Astor Road on the right. There are some sheds or boat houses directly along the water there that I never noticed on any of the photos of this stretch of the waterfront.

In this photo, a large tent appears behind the trees on the left, likely along Whangpoo Road, but this might be a temporary structure as I don't recall ever noticing it in other photos.

For our next photo we are going to stay in 1915 and we'll return up to the north end of the Garden Bridge.