[9] Located near the confluence of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River, as well as the northern end of The Bund, it was built by the architectural and engineering firm of Palmer and Turner, and its completion in 1935 heralded the commencement of the high-rise building era in Asia.

"[35] From its inception, it "had been a headquarters for Japanese commercial activity",[36] due to its proximity to Shanghai's Little Tokyo, comprising the Yangpu and Hongkou districts.

[39] After the surrender of non-foreign Shanghai in November 1937, the International Settlement north of the Suzhou Creek, became almost exclusively Japanese in population.

[48] After December 1938, as a result of a meeting of Japanese military authorities and the Japanese-appointed puppet regime Reformed Government of the Republic of China[49] led by Liang Hongzhi in Nanjing, which led to the formation "the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Anhui Opium Suppression Bureau (Su Zhe Wan jinyanju) on the fifth floor of the Broadway Mansions. ...

[64] The American-owned China Weekly Review attributed the cause of the Chinese hostility to the "outrageous conduct" of American military police and other Army and Marine" personnel.

One lives comfortably at the Broadway Mansions, ... one of the Far East's finest hotels, waited on hand and foot by servants",[70] making it "the most decorous press club in Asia".

While there was intense fighting in the rural areas of China during the escalating Chinese Civil War, this "did not prevent the parties in the foreign correspondents' club atop the eighteen-story Broadway Mansions, where dancing went on under gaily colored lights.

"[75] At these parties, "White Russian mistresses mingled with the American wives and black market speculators with military personnel",[76] who all cursed the Chinese, including both the Communists and Chiang Kai-shek.

[74] Along with the decline in value of the Chinese currency, both gambling and opium-smoking increased, as did concerns about what to do with their White Russian mistresses should the Communists triumph and evict them from China.

[84] From 30 April 1949 retreating Nationalist soldiers took possession of the Broadway Mansions, the nearby Central Post Office and the Embankment apartment complex.

[86] Eventually, just over one thousand Nationalists defended the Broadway Mansions,[87] where they had entrenched themselves on the upper floors, where they could shoot from the windows and from the roof.

[88] From the roof of Broadway Mansions, just above the Foreign Press Club, the Kuomintang snipers could rake the approaches to the Waibaidu Bridge by the advancing Communist forces.

Peter Townsend recalls: "When you go out on the parapet of Broadway Mansions a bullet whistles above your head and you duck and crawl back on your hands and knees.

[95] On 20 June 1949 the remaining 11 foreigners residing in the Broadway Mansions were ordered to leave to make room for political and military workers.

[99] Apparently, in 1957, the Mansions was also known as the 'Golden River Hotel',[100] which The Times journalist James Bertram (1910–1980) described as "an elaborate Western-style hotel-cum-apartment-house that has survived the war years and the Japanese occupation without visible change.

[105] Belgian journalist Jacques Marcuse concurred with that assessment, describing the Mansions in 1967 as "that tall yet squat ugly building".

"[109] On 23 February 1967, an "expatriate rebel group which had set up headquarters in the Shanghai Mansions, staged an assault on the Revolutionary Committee's economic department".

[114] However, after this incident "they continued to deploy large numbers around the Shanghai Mansions day and night, beating up public security personnel.

"[121] Referring to the Mansion's popularity, Masi indicated: "Depending on the time of year, this large room is half empty or crowded with tourists.

"[125] By 1984, "The Shanghai Mansions, consisting of a main and a side building, is a hotel accommodating foreign tourists, businessmen, overseas Chinese.

[127] In 1985 one visitor referred to the "Thirties fortress of Shanghai Mansions, its thick brick walls pocked by black windows.

[7] According to Professor Anne Warr, Despite the uncertainties of the 1930s, in particular the increasing Japanese control over Chinese territory, the growing influence of the Communist Party, and the corruption of the Nationalist Government, Shanghai boomed.

Internationalism from New York permeated Shanghai in the form of skyscrapers and the latest Hollywood movies, while Japanese imperialism filtered into every corner.

[139]The Broadway Mansions was designed by Mr. B. Flazer,[140] and the structural engineer who supervised construction was John William Barrow,[141] both of the architectural firm of Palmer & Turner.

[155] The Broadway Mansions is "a brick patterned Art Deco apartment block ...[that] would not have looked out of place in Manhattan",[156] and is an example of the Art Deco or Streamline Moderne style of architecture that emerged in the 1920s and flourished in the 1930s[157] The Broadway Mansions is a steel-framed red brick building "in the stepped skyscraper mode",[158] that is 78 meters (256 ft) in height,[159] with a total floor space of 24,596 square meters (264,750 sq ft).

[163] According to Peter Rowe and Seng Kuan, after describing the Metropole Hotel and Hamilton House, also designed by Palmer & Turner about the same time: "A similar approach to both architecture and place making was taken almost simultaneously by B. Flazer, with the curved symmetric stepped-back facade of the Broadway Mansions. ...

The firm of Palmer and Turner was to continue with curvilinear plan forms in the organic layout of the large Embankment Building of 1933.

[7] The Broadway Mansions is considered "one of the finest architectural examples in Shanghai, and the ideal starting point for an art deco walking tour of the city, ... an unashamedly Gotham-esque structure with a commanding location to the north of the Bund.

After describing its contemporary, the Cathay Hotel, which "seems to point to loftier things, ... defying the smug security of the earth as it soars upwards, and yet not so blatantly as the new Broadway Mansions which, abandoning all restraint ... lifts its optimistic head from its broad substantial shoulders and shouts to the settlement.

[170] Gary Jones wrote, "the 22-floor ocher-brick structure is now dwarfed by twinkling skyscrapers that have sprung up in recent years, and yet still exudes a menacing solidity and here-to-stay confidence.