The Paramount, designed in Art Deco style by the architect S. J. Young (楊錫謬 Yáng Xīmiù, 1899-1978) was completed in 1933, by a group of Chinese bankers. It lay just off Bubbling Well Road (now Nanjing West Road), a major entertainment thoroughfare and was a meeting place for the wealthy elite of Shanghai society. The Ballroom lasted under its original owners before going bankrupt in 1936. In 1937, it was converted into a taxi dance hall featuring Chinese dance hostesses, which it remained until 1949. Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down th
The Paramount, designed in Art Deco style by the architect S. J. Young (楊錫謬 Yáng Xīmiù, 1899-1978) was completed in 1933, by a group of Chinese bankers. It lay just off Bubbling Well Road (now Nanjing West Road), a major entertainment thoroughfare and was a meeting place for the wealthy elite of Shanghai society. The Ballroom lasted under its original owners before going bankrupt in 1936. In 1937, it was converted into a taxi dance hall featuring Chinese dance hostesses, which it remained until 1949. Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, the British opened a ‘concession’ in Shanghai where drug dealers and other traders could operate undisturbed. French, Italians, Germans, Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was a boom town and an international byword for dissipation. When the Communists won power in 1949, they transformed Shanghai into a model of the Revolution.
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Photo credit: © Pictures From History / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: asia, asian, china, chinese, dance, david, disco, discotheque, entertainment, hall, henley, historical, history, image, images, nightclub, pictures, shanghai
