Broadway Mansions Hotel

Broadway Mansions is the red-brick Art Deco tower at the northern end of the Waibaidu, or Garden, Bridge, where Suzhou Creek flows into the Huangpu River. It was built between 1930 and 1934 for the Shanghai Land Investment Company, a firm linked to Sir Victor Sassoon, and designed by B. Flazer of Palmer and Turner, the practice behind many Bund buildings. The steel-framed building rises 19 floors and 78 metres, in an Art Deco style with Streamline Moderne touches.

The building has a dramatic past. Japanese forces took it over in August 1937 and used it as a military and administrative base. After the Second World War it housed American military personnel and the Foreign Correspondents' Club, and in May 1949 it was a focal point of fighting before the People's Liberation Army took the city. It was renamed Shanghai Mansions in 1951 and became Broadway Mansions again in 1996. It is run by Shanghai Hengshan Group.

According to a city-backed profile, the hotel has 248 rooms and suites, 130 of them with river views and 13 facing the Bund. It has six restaurants and bars serving Chinese, Japanese and Western food, as well as a spa, a fitness centre, a beauty salon and a gallery. Some original features have been preserved, including a piano, a billiards table, an Otis lift and a phonograph.

The hotel suits travellers who want a historic building with Bund views. It is a short walk across the Garden Bridge to the northern end of the promenade. Ask for a river-view or Bund-view room when booking, as these are the reason to stay.

The original address was 1 Broadway, which gave the building its name, and Shanghai Hengshan Group has owned and run it since at least 1985. The city-backed profile also lists five meeting halls and notes that it has been operating for more than 80 years at the meeting point of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu.

The North Bund location puts the riverside cafés of North Suzhou Road, such as J'S Link, on the doorstep, and Tiantong Road metro station is within walking distance.