Glory Days Money
and magic return to the Bund By RON GLUCKMAN and
CRYSTYL MO
Silver-screen maestro Josef von Sternberg visited in 1930 and
captured the dynamism and decadence of one of its establishments
in memorable prose: "Six floors that seethed with life and all
the commotion that goes with it, studded with every variety
of entertainment Chinese ingenuity has contrived." On one floor
alone, the cast involved "gambling tables, singsong girls, magicians,
pickpockets, slot machines, fireworks, bird cages, fans, stick
incense, acrobats and ginger." The location? Shanghai's magical
Bund.
Long ago and far away. The riverfront boulevard has been in
a coma during a half century of Communist rule. But a new vision
for the Bund shares more qualities with its roaring prewar epoch
than staid socialism. Credit Handel Lee, an American lawyer
who has stormed into Shanghai with fanciful dreams and, maybe,
the right backing and partners to pull off a revival. "The Bund
is dead right now," says Lee, who turns 40 in July, the same
month that the Communist Party celebrates its 80th. "What we
want to do is spark something."
Lee's family is from China and he grew up in Maryland in the
U.S. His American background certainly hasn't been a hindrance
on the mainland. His Courtyard restaurant and contemporary art
gallery that opened in Beijing in 1996 have been smash hits.
His dazzling restoration of an old building near the Imperial
Palace has won ample fans; it's the only Chinese restaurant
listed on many international food guides.
Now Lee is cooking up the same quality for Shanghai with a piece
de rEsistance on the Bund that involves gutting a seven-story
structure built in 1915 for the Union Assurance Company of Canton.
There he plans several five-star restaurants, a jazz club, spacious
art galleries and a showroom of designer goods with his own
labels. The high cost will match his soaring ambitions. Lee
declines to discuss exact numbers but a project insider says
the total restoration will add tens of millions of dollars to
the purchase cost of $47 million. "I don't want to talk numbers,"
says Lee, who wears a black fedora and beautifully tailored
suits. "However many tens of millions you print, it will be
more."
And that's not all. Lee also wants to develop a lavish private
club on the rooftop of the old Hongkong and Shanghai Banking
Corp. building, the signature structure of Old Shanghai. Built
by Palmer & Turner, a British firm that crafted much of
the Bund, the HSBC building has housed both the local Communist
Party offices and municipal government. In a funny twist, it's
now occupied by the Pudong Development Bank. Funny, because
HSBC is back in Shanghai but is based in Pudong by government
decree.
Lee's Singaporean partner, GT International, originally purchased
the Union Assurance building five years ago with plans to serve
banks and offices. "But it's the perfect building, and the perfect
time" for his kind of project, says Lee. "Shanghai is happening.
Something like this couldn't be done in Beijing for 10 years."
Prospects for a cultural revival of the Bund have never looked
better. Mandarin Oriental International has reportedly inked
a deal to refurbish and run the Peace Hotel, perhaps the finest
art deco palace in all of Asia. Hong Kong-Shanghai Hotels, which
runs the equally opulent Peninsula in Hong Kong, has also been
looking to return to the city it fled after liberation turned
down the lights on the Bund half a century ago.
Now the lights are coming up fast. Lee's ambitious project won't
come on line for at least another year, but, with him or without
him, the private club will open in October. That's when Shanghai
hosts the APEC summit. Leaders from around the world will be
wined and dined along the Bund - just like in decadent times
of old. You can bank on it.
Commentary
2003-12-06
Coming soon to the commentary column--behind the scenes stories of the how the articles are really put together--the difficulty in getting anyone to accept an interview in China, the political sensitivities, the great stuff that got cut because of space, and much more about the joys and frustrations of writing in China
