Memory at Sea Chen Yi once witnessed the red flag rising here: Memories of the Old City Hall Building

Opposite the No. 49 bus terminal on Hankou Road on the Bund, an old building that has gone through vicissitudes of life lies silently. This four-story building, surrounded by Jiangxi Middle Road, Fuzhou Road and Hankou Road, has classicism, baroque and Renaissance styles. It is among the surrounding old buildings such as the Capital Hotel, Hamilton Building and Construction Building. , may not appear particularly outstanding, but looking at the history of Shanghai, it has a prominent history. On May 27, 1949, Shanghai was liberated, and the Shanghai Municipal People's Communist Party and the Shanghai Military Control Commission of the Chinese People's Liberation Army were established here. The next day, Chen Yi, the first mayor of Shanghai, walked into the building and completed the handover of the old and new offices with the Kuomintang acting mayor Zhao Zukang. Then a solemn and warm red flag-raising ceremony was held here - this is the former Ministry of Industry Bureau Building. It is also the old city government building that is familiar to Shanghainese.

At the beginning of the last century, with the expansion of the public concession, the original office buildings of its highest municipal agency, the Ministry of Industry and Industry Bureau, on Henan Road and Jiangxi Road could no longer meet the demand. The board of directors decided Construct a new office building. The construction work began with the design in 1913, the foundation stone was laid in 1914, and it was completed and opened in 1922. On the afternoon of November 16, 1922, the Ministry of Industry Bureau Building was officially opened. The General Director of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau delivered a special speech, introduced the construction, composition and distribution of the building to the invited guests, and arranged the opening and visit of the building. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the Shanghai Municipal Government moved from Fenglinqiao to the former Bureau Building of the Ministry of Industry. After 1949, it became the office of the Shanghai People's Government. It was not until 1955 that the Shanghai People's Government moved out of the former Ministry of Industry Bureau Building and moved into the former HSBC Bank building on the Bund. , health, gardening, planning, environmental protection, municipal administration and other bureau offices, it is known as the "Old City Hall Building". In 1989, the building was announced as an outstanding historical building in Shanghai.

One day in the 1980s, I got off the No. 64 bus in front of the building, stepped into the main entrance of the building at the corner of Jiangxi Middle Road and Hankou Road, passed through the black and white marble-paved hall, and walked along. He walked up the stairs to the Human Resources Office of the Civil Affairs Bureau on the second floor to report, and began his nearly thirty-year career as a civil servant. Over the past few decades, I have personally experienced the continuous development of civil affairs, witnessed the moving in and out of various agencies in the building, and participated in many civil affairs bureau office inspections, from half a floor, to one floor, to several floors. Moving jobs. During the expansion and adjustment, my office has also moved from the bureau office (Policy Research Office) on the second floor to the Publicity Office and Policy and Regulations Office on the same floor, and then to the News and Publicity Office ("Shanghai Civil Affairs" magazine) on the third floor. , and finally return to the Social Welfare Office on the first floor.

Every time I move to an office, I can see shiny teak and meranti floors, intact iron fireplaces, and brightly colored floor tiles in the corridor outside the door. The copper fire hydrant at the corner is still in good condition, although it is no longer in use. The sanitary ware in the bathroom is printed with old-fashioned English letters. Although the porcelain has lost its luster, it is still in use. Once, I was still at the back stairway and found several boundary markers of the public concession piled up. Everything shows the vicissitudes of history of the building. But in this old building of history, we are engaged in a new and booming new cause related to people's livelihood.

When someone asked me, "How did you feel when you first stepped into this prestigious building?" I felt like I had entered the "fascination circle" in a tunnel battle. I entered through the gate on Jiangxi Road. When I came out, I followed the stairs to a courtyard paved with stone bricks and filled with parked cars. Finally, I walked out through the gate on Fuzhou Road. In fact, this ring-shaped building with a history of nearly a century, covering an area of ??more than 15,000 square meters, a construction area of ??more than 30,000 square meters, and spanning three roads is indeed an architectural castle.

The former Ministry of Industry Bureau Building has ten gates. The northeast corner is the main entrance. The main entrance is a concave fan-shaped porch with a platform above it, which can be used for viewing and inspection. The building has 400 offices, which can accommodate thousands of people working at the same time. There are houses on three sides of the building, and there is a three-and-a-half-acre central square inside the building, which is used to park public vehicles of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and private cars of employees. It also often parks six armored vehicles of the general patrol room. The building also has a wind and rain playground and a small shooting range with an area of ??nearly 2,000 square meters, and is equipped with facilities such as a library, reading room, lecture hall, and gym.

The interior decoration of the building is also extraordinary. All materials are imported from the United Kingdom. The corridors and walls are all made of marble or colored glazed tiles. The main entrance and the stairs leading to the board meeting room are all made of marble. Black and white marble, offices generally have teak and meranti floors. The building's low-pressure hot water supply system was designed by British designer Nobbs, who designed the heating system for London City Hall. The communication equipment was also equipped with the most advanced automatic telephone switching system at the time. The building is equipped with sanitary equipment, The elevators and hot water heaters are all imported brands and are of great value. It is conceivable that when the building was completed, its scale, luxurious architecture, and advanced facilities were among the best in the Far East, and it became a model in the architectural field at that time.

When I was working in this architectural castle, the building had passed its sixtieth year, and the glory it had at that time no longer existed, but the overall majestic appearance of the building's granite still told the story of the past. of brilliance.

In the "old city government building", which is commonly known as the "stone house" by the citizens, I witnessed many "firsts" in Shanghai's civil affairs innovation, such as the establishment of the country's first minimum living security system, It was the first community affairs service in the country to be centralized in one service, the national elderly care service was the first to be included in the municipal government's practical projects for the people, Shanghai's first sea burial event, the introduction of the country's first local government regulations on foreign-related marriages, the country's first The establishment of a provincial and municipal social worker association, the first social group administration in the country, the promulgation of the first local regulations on elderly care services in the country, the sale of the first social welfare lottery in the country in Shanghai, the first home-based elderly care services in the country, It was the first to improve the child welfare mechanism, the first to carry out quality certification of elderly care institutions, the first to form a new pattern of "three-in-one" mechanism for assistance management into the community and street assistance management, etc.

In the last few years of working in the building, the Social Welfare Office on the first floor where I was located was right next to the office of Mayor Chen Yi. Mayor Chen Yi's office was originally planned to be restored to its original appearance, but later it was said that the plan was not approved, so the reception room of the agency was built, with a model of the original appearance of Mayor Chen Yi's office placed in one corner. Where I live, I often receive guests and hold meetings in the reception room. Whenever I meet a guest who comes to the building for a meeting for the first time, I always introduce the glorious past of the reception room to the guest and take the guest to visit the model.

After the Civil Affairs Bureau expanded from half a floor to multiple floors, the offices communicated with each other during the day. Unlike before, they could not be reached by just lifting their feet, but had to take the elevator up and down. Sometimes I am on duty at night as the administrative director of the agency. I do a night patrol and walk down floors one by one with a flashlight. It takes more than half an hour, and I have to look carefully at some corners. Along with the "Stone House", I went from having a full head of black hair when I entered the institution to now having gray hair on my temples. Once while having dinner in the restaurant on the fourth floor, I and my colleagues looked out the window at the platform at the main entrance. They recalled the grand occasion when the People's Liberation Army just took over the building and the PLA soldiers raised the first red flag on the platform. We couldn't help but lament to each other that time flies. .

In 2012, according to the instructions of the Municipal Government, all agencies and units in the old city government building were evacuated, and the Civil Affairs Bureau moved to its new office at No. 300 Shibo Village Road, Pudong. Before moving out, I took a group photo with my colleagues in front of the main entrance of the building at No. 215 Jiangxi Middle Road. Later, I went to the lobby to read the words of the old mayor: "Shanghai people will build a people's new Shanghai according to their own will." I left a photo in front of the inscribed stone tablet and kept in mind Comrade Chen Yi's teachings on civil affairs work to "share the worries of the central government at the top and relieve the worries of the people at the bottom."