Standing at the corner of Dong Dan Bei Dajie and the entrance to Gan Main Hutong - Looking east (June 1987)
Standing at the corner of Dong Dan Bei Dajie and the entrance to Gan Main Hutong - Looking east (May 2007)
My visit to Beijing in May 2007 was 20 years, almost to the day, after my first trip to China. Adding to the nostalgia, quite by chance my hotel was located less than a block away from my first home in Beijing: the Chinese Red Cross Guest House. Back in 1987, foreigners had very slim pickings for hotels as most only accepted Chinese nationals as guests. At that time the entire area where I am now staying was one large hutong that started at Dongdan Dajie, but most of that is gone as you can see from the two photos.
The Chinese Red Cross Guest House is still in business, though westerners seem not to be taken by its charm; much to my surprise it was in plain view just outside my window at the Park Plaza Hotel. You can see bits of the typical gray roofed hutong in this photo from my window; the Red Cross Hotel is the multistoried white building just right of center.
The arrow marks the corner of Dong Dan Bei Dajie and the entrance to Gan Main Hutong, the spot where the two photographs were taken. With some imagination, the tree at the left in both photos might be the same one.
An interactive map of the Dong Cheng area is available at Dr Ben's China Report site.