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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.<br/><br/> 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.
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.<br/><br/> 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.
International attention to Shanghai grew in the 19th century due to its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze River. During the First Opium War (1839–1842), British forces temporarily held the city. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, opening Shanghai and other ports to international trade. In 1863, the British settlement, located to the south of Suzhou creek (Huangpu district), and the American settlement, to the north of Suzhou creek (Hongkou district), joined in order to form the International Settlement.<br/><br/>The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council, and maintained its own French Concession. Citizens of many countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work during the ensuing decades; those who stayed for long periods called themselves 'Shanghailanders'. In the 1920s and 30s, some 20,000 so-called White Russians and Russian Jews fled the newly established Soviet Union and took up residence in Shanghai. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners.