Historic Shanghai right under your feet

Buildings mysteriously come and go in this city -- it’s just how it is -- but the little bits of historic Shanghai that manage to stick around which are extraordinary to stumble upon. We’ll admit that a manhole cover is rarely something to get excited about, but when it’s square and reads S.M.C. it’s a rare find.

S.M.C, the Shanghai Municipal Council, is the group that ran the International Concession from 1854 to 1943. The SMC (along with its foreign residents) maintained its own police force and trained its own military reserves. What the SMC really is known for though is the architecture and development of The Bund, which is where we stumbled over this manhole cover.

Located on Fuzhou Lu between Henan Zhong Lu and Jingxi Zhong Lu (near Hamilton House), this square manhole cover has withstood much of the area’s renovations even if it’s easy to miss in the pavement outside a public security bureau building. Although we don’t suggest stopping to snap a photo (the station's guards aren’t huge fans cameras on that block), definitely wander past to see a little piece of historic Shanghai that doesn’t look like it’s going to be swept away by the bulldozers of change any time soon. It's not 1930s Shanghai glamour but it's still an interesting window into local history.

This is far from the only historic manhole cover to survive urban development so keep your eyes pealed across the Bund area as well as in the French Concession where many of the old covers are actually still in use today.