The Post Office Building

One of the most beautiful post office buildings in all of China, it was completed in 1924 and covered several acres. It replaced seven post offices which served the most important foreign powers in Shanghai after World War I. In addition to serving a Chinese clientele, it also handled foreign mail for all the 48 nationalities represented in Shanghai.

Besides the standard post office facilities, it also featured, tucked away on one corner of the roof, a small house for the maintenance man and his family, refugees from central Europe. The daughter tells of living there in her own private world, with the whole of Soochow Creek and its surrounds at her feet. From her lofty lair she could look down on the British American Tobacco Company opposite, the Garden Bridge, the Broadway Mansions, the Russian Consulate and the Embankment House-all pictured here -and all the teeming traffic of sampans on the creek below.

We do not know what use their little house serves today, but the post office is still Shanghai's main post office.