Five fun facts about some of the most storied Art Deco apartment buildings in the former French Concession.

1. The French Concession’s American Enclave

From left: The Washington, the Lincoln, the Georgia

So what’s with all the French Concession Art Deco apartments named for Americans? Within a small radius, you’ll find the Washington (America’s first president), the Georgia (the state), the Lincoln (America’s civil war president), and the Pershing (General of the Armies John J. Pershing, Word War I military hero, for whom a cruise missile is also named).

The American names were most likely inspired by the proximity of the Shanghai American School, situated on Hengshan Lu/Avenue Petain and within walking distance of each of these buildings. No doubt the developers were trying to attract the families whose children attended the school! (Architects: Washington, Alexander Yaron, 1932; Georgia, Robert Fan, 1934, Pershing, Alexander Kooklin, 1942)

2. When the Normandie was the Anti-Revisionist Tower

Hudec’s Normandie apartments were a triple threat: built by a foreigner for foreigners, owned by the daughter of Nationalist Finance Minister H.H. Kung, and home to a host of film stars.  The building obviously had to be re-named during the Cultural Revolution: thus it became the Anti-Revisionist Tower. Sadly, during this time it was also known as “The Diving Board,” for all the suicides. (Architect: Laszlo Hudec, for R.A. Curry, 1924)

3. Love Nest at the Lincoln

Speaking of collaborationists, the oldsters in the neighborhood love to gossip about the time that one of the officials in the wartime Japanese puppet regime kept his mistress in a Lincoln apartment (1931). Zhou Fohai was the mayor of Shanghai in the Japanese puppet government, headed by Wang Jingwei and officially known as the “reorganized Nationalist government of China”. Zhou maintained his mistress, actress/singer Xiao Linghong, in a Lincoln apartment love nest. Then the wife found out, Japan lost the war, and it all went to pieces …

4. Into Thin Air: An Art Deco Architect Disappears

Alexandre Leonard, Paul Veysseyre & Arthur Kruze were the French Concession’s premier architects, creators of everything from the Cercle Sportif Français (French Club) to the Poste Mallet (central police station), and a host of stunning Art Deco buildings: the Magy, the Gascogne, the Béarne, the Willow…

Veyssyre and Kruze moved on, but Leonard remained in Shanghai, continuing to design Art Deco gems. But perhaps he stayed too long. As he completed the Amyron Apartments on Rte Cohen (Gao’an Lu), the Vichy regime was installed in France and in their Shanghai Concession. Leonard lived at the Amyron throughout the war with his Russian wife, Anna, but by war’s end, he vanished from this Art Deco beauty without a trace. The mystery has never been solved. (Architect: Alexandre Leonard, 1941.)

5. The Outlaw at the Irene

The slim, eight-storey Irene Apartments, with its spacious garden, seems like a perfectly respectable residence—but it was here that the notorious underworld figure Jack Riley lived for a time. In November 1940, the newspapers reported that Shanghai’s “Slot Machine King” had been robbed, with the burglars making off with a gold watch and pearl necklace. Soon afterwards, he fled from trial (for operating gambling machines), forfeiting a 25,000 bail, and was finally hunted down in a seedy apartment in Hongkou, and sentenced to prison in the U.S. in April the following year. (Architect: Wladimir Livin-Goldenstaedt, 1934.)

Fascinated by Jack Riley and the underworld? He’s one of the two men Paul French writes about in City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai.