FUZHOU Road runs parallel to Nanjing, Jiujiang and Hankou roads. It was paved in the 1850s shortly after Shanghai opened as a treaty port in 1843. It was initially named Mission Road after a nearby London Missionary Society organization, but it was changed to Foochow Road in 1865.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the road was an unusual blend of newspaper offices, bookstores, publishing houses and stationary stores on the one hand, and brothels and teahouses on the other. Shanghai-style Peking Opera also originated along the road.

After Shanghai opened its port following the Opium War (1840-1842), merchants from Europe and the United States thronged to the city. They opened companies and banks, propelling the growth of the city’s industry, commerce, foreign trade and finance. The scientific literacy of the population grew accordingly. Among the advancements was the appearance of a newspaper.

In its peak in 1916, Wangping Street (now Shandong Road M.), an alley around Fuzhou Road, was noted for its 51 Chinese or foreign language newspapers, and therefore was nicknamed Newspaper Street.

The North China Herald (北华捷报), founded by the British auctioneer Henry Shearman from Pickwoad & Co on August 3, 1850, was the first English newspaper in Shanghai. Its initial location was on Hankou Road along the Fuzhou Road block. It was later relocated to Bund 17 in 1901, which now houses the American International Assurance Shanghai Branch.

Shearman was confident and worked diligently for the newspaper until his death in March 1856, in the hope that the ultimate influence of the newspaper wouldn’t be transient.

His followers sustained his practice and ran the paper even better. The weekly issued its North China Daily News (字林西报) from July 1, 1864, featuring trade and business news.

It was the first in contemporary China to publish an extra in 1883 on the Sino-French War in Vietnam.

The agency was also the first to adopt telecommunications from Reuters in Shanghai.

The newspaper's final edition was published on March 31, 1951, leaving behind a 100-year legacy.

At the crossing between Shandong Road M. and Hankou Road in the neighborhood stands a neoclassical-style building, whose lintel bears the English spelling “The Press” and three Chinese characters 申报馆, or “Shun Pao building.”

The venue is now a Western food restaurant, with an auxiliary newsstand and coffee booth.

Its interior floor has been paved with glass. Under the glass, different newspapers are showcased.

The venue is the former site of Shun Pao, relocated from the crossing of Jiangxi and Hankou roads in 1882. Ernest Major, a British tea and cloth trader, founded the newspaper in 1872.

It was transferred in 1912 to be managed by Shi Liangcai, a press tycoon during the Republic of China (1912-1949), who veered Shun Pao's coverage to patriotism and resisting against invasion.

Shi was assassinated by a Kuomintang secret agent on November 13, 1934.

In the 1870s, Shanghai was connected to the world through two wired telegraph lines. One passed through Shanghai, Xiamen and Hong Kong, and finally reached Europe. The other connected Shanghai with Nagasaki in Japan and other Pacific regions.

Shun Pao published the first Chinese wire news on January 30, 1874, covering a British Cabinet reshuffle. One of its reporters wired the first Chinese telegraph news piece on January 16, 1882, on the dereliction of duty of a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) official.

The newspaper stopped publishing in May 1949, when its office was transferred to Jiefang Daily.

With international trade rising starting from 1843, both the Chinese and foreign populations had soared in Shanghai. Foreign missionaries and Chinese intellectuals were eager to set up bookstores in the city.

From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, the area around Fuzhou Road attracted Chinese and foreign language bookstores, as well as some focused on ancient literature.

Among the earliest booksellers was the British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst. He relocated his London Missionary Society Press, or Mohai Bookstore, to Medhurst Circle, which was south of Fuzhou Road on Shandong Road M.

The bookstore initially published missionary brochures and the Bible, and later employed Chinese translators to edit books on geometry, astronomy, gravity, botany and other science books.

John Fryer, another British missionary, founded the Chinese Scientific Book Depot, or Gezhi Bookstore, on Hankou Road in 1876.

That same year, the Major Brothers & Co trialed their Tienshihchai Photolithographic Publishing Store in the area.

The Commercial Press was co-founded by Xia Ruifang and the brothers Bao Xian’en and Bao Xianchang in 1897 on Jiangxi Road around the block.

About 100 stores selling antiques and old books used to be scattered around Fuzhou, Hankou and Guangxi roads, as well as Henan Road M. and Shandong Road M. Its owners struggled to stay in business when mainstream reading habits changed.

Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House was the outcome to preserve the trade in 1956.

Nowadays Fuzhou Road has traces of its past with Shanghai Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai Book City, Baixin Bookstore and others selling a wide variety of titles.

Photo studios, barbershops, public baths and antique markets once prospered or still operate around the block.

In the 1900s, the front garden of a villa in Cideli Lane on Zhejiang Road rose to prominence due to frequent visits by celebrities to two restaurants in the garden, one featuring Yangzhou cuisine and the other Sichuan. People called the area “Little Garden” for its bustling atmosphere.

In the 1920s, a cobbler carrying a handbag full of embroidered shoe uppers earned his name for his warm and tailored services into mansions and brothels to measure sizes of women’s shoes. He later opened an embroidered shoe store around the “Little Garden,” and soon a cluster of 55 shoe stores were in the area.

When former French President Georges Pompidou and his wife visited Shanghai in 1973, they admired a pair of traditional Chinese embroidered shoes, which was said to be a pair of tailor-made “Little Garden” women’s shoes.

Items for sale on Fuzhou Road used to include brush pens, ink, papers, fan paper, measuring devices, sports items, musical instruments, art supplies, flags and gift packages.