The view from the 87th floor of the Jinmao tower, looking west from Pudong over the Huangpu River
The section of Shanghai known as Pudong, or the east side of the Huangpu River (“dong” means east in Mandarin), has grown spectacularly in the past 26 years. It currently is home to the 88-story Jinmao Tower, the 101-story World Financial Center, and soon the 121-story Shanghai Tower, which will be the second-tallest building on earth when construction is complete. I took the photo at left at sunset from the Jinmao tower, looking over the Oriental Pearl TV tower and Huangpu river to the west, toward the traditional city center of Shanghai. But for perhaps the best perspective on how quickly and astoundingly Pudong has grown, click here for a photo comparison at the Atlantic Monthly. Watch as a photo from 1987 is automatically overlaid by a photo from this summer.
