The buildings along the Bund and what they housed, starting from Yanan Lu to the South and working North
No. 1: McBain Building, also the Asiatic Petroleum Building, built in Renaissance style in 1915. Later became the Shell Building.
No. 3: The Shanghai Club, built in 1909 for an English club which had been founded 1865. It was said that it had the longest bar in the world, or at least Asia. Reputedly it was 34 metres (111 ft) long. A part of the bar still remains in what was for many years the Seamen’s Club upstairs. It has in recent years housed the Dong Feng Hotel with a Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant in the downstairs gallery that was once the long bar. Currently, the building is closed pending renovations.
No. 4: Union Assurance Company of Canton Building, built in 1915, used by the Mercantile Bank of India, Ltd.
Guangdong Rd
No. 5: Now home to M on the Bund. Originally the Nisshin Kisen Kaisha Building, erected in 1925 for the Japanese shipping line which plied the Chinese coast and the Yangtze.
No. 6: In the early 1930s home of the British P&O shipping line. It was later used by the Shanghai Volunteer Corps as billets for its Russian soldiers until the Japanese invasion in 1937. Then it became the Central Bank of China, Trust Department.
No. 7: Commercial Bank of China.
No. 8: A Chinese office building (Tong Yok Kung or Tung Tzue Shing).
No. 9: Housed the steamship lines of China Merchant Steamship navigation Co., States Steamship Co., and American Pioneer Line.
Foochow Rd
No. 12: The Hongkong & Shanghai Bank. Opened in 1925. The largest bank of the Far East. The building is now occupied by the Pudong Development Bank which financed a complete renovation. The main banking hall is magnificent. The lions out front are scaled-down versions of the originals.
No. 13: Customs House, built in 1927. The entrance hall has mosaics of Chinese junks.
Hankow Rd
No. 14: Bank of Communications, on the corner of Hankou Lu. Until 1914 this was the German Asiatic Bank.
No. 15: Until 1926, the Russo-Asiatic Bank, then the Central Bank of China. There used to be sculptured heads under the eaves, but during the Cultural Revolution they were destroyed by the Red Guards. Now occupied by the Shanghai foreign exchange swap center.
No. 16: Bank of Taiwan (Japanese).
No. 17: Home of the North China Daily News, plus a number of printing companies and the American Asiatic Underwriters Savings Bank. Now occupied by the American insurance company, AIA.
No. 18: Chartered Bank Building, housing the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China.
No. 19: Palace Hotel, built in 1906. It had a legendary roof garden destroyed by fire in 1914. Today it is the south wing of the Peace Hotel.
Nanking Rd
No. 20: Sassoon House, including the Cathay Hotel, now the north wing of the Peace Hotel. Built in 1930 by Sir Victor Sassoon. Sassoon, who was a bachelor, lived in the penthouse.
No.22: Bank of China, Shanghai Branch. On this location, prior to 1934, stood a colonial style building with two towers named the Concordia Club, a German club founded in 1865.
No.24: Yokohama Specie Bank, built in 1924. It became the Central Bank of China in 1945.
No.26: Yangtze Insurance Building. Opened in 1918.
No.27: Ewo Building. Ewo was the name of Jardine, Matheson and Co. Ltd, founded in 1834 by the Scots William Jardine and James Matheson, which became one of the great trading houses of the China Coast.
No.28: Glen Line Building. It also housed the P.& O. Banking Corporation.
No.29: Banque de l’Indo-Chine.
No.31: Office of the Japanese steamship line Nippon Yusen Kaisha.
The houses No.32 through 53 were located on the premises of the former British consulate.
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