Under The People's Republic
At the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China (1949), a number of foreign legations were still situated here, but after 1959 foreign missions were moved to Sanlitun outside the old city walls.
However, the area suffered much vandalism during the Cultural Revolution. More damage was inflicted since the 1980s due to Beijing's redevelopment. Several buildings, such as the former HSBC building, were demolished for road expansion. Some buildings are occupied by government institutions. A number of modern high-rise buildings have also been built, dramatically changing the area's streetscape. Nevertheless, as Beijing's most significant collection of Western-style buildings, the area is a tourist destination and is protected by municipal artifact preservation orders.
The former Legation Quarter is now home to several fine dining restaurants and retail shops. One such development operated by Handel Lee, a well known Beijing businessman, is "Ch’ien Men 23," as the place is branded, an integrated lifestyle development all within a restored building in the former Legation Quarter.
Read more about this topic: Beijing Legation Quarter
Famous quotes containing the words people and/or republic:
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)