1.The Great World was built in 1917 on the corner of Avenue Edward VII (now Yan'an Road) and Yu Ya Ching Road (now Middle Xizang Road).
2.It was the brainchild of Shanghai magnate Huang Chujiu and was the first and for a long time the most influential indoor amusement arcade in Shanghai.It even gained reputation as the No.1 Entertainment Venue in the Far East.
3.Great World was rebuilt in 1924 in an eclectic style borrowing largely from European Baroque, topped by a magic four-storey tower which soon became a landmark.It occupied an area of 6,500 square meters.
4.Within the new design there were various recreational spaces: amusement arcades, parlour games, music halls, traditional Chinese theatre, magic-world halls, billiard halls, ping-pong halls and roller-skating rinks. It was also famous for the twelve distorting "magic mirrors" imported from the Netherlands in the lobby area. There were also Chinese restaurants and snack bars for Shanghai delicacies.
5.Writing of his visit in the mid-1930s, Hollywood film director Josef von Sternberg described: "On the first floor were gaming tables, singsong girls, magicians, pick-pockets, slot machines, fireworks, birdcages, fans, stick incense, acrobats, and ginger. One flight up were... actors, crickets and cages, pimps, midwives, barbers, and earwax extractors. The third floor had jugglers, herb medicines, ice cream parlors, a new bevy of girls, their high collared gowns slit To reveal their hips, and (as a) novelty, several rows of exposed (Western) toilets. The fourth floor had shooting galleries, fan-tan tables, ... massage benches, ... dried fish and intestines, and dance platforms. The fifth floor featured girls with dresses slit to the armpits, a stuffed whale, storytellers, balloons, peep shows, masks, a mirror maze,two love letter booths with scribes who guaranteed results, rubber goods, and a temple filled with ferocious gods and joss sticks. On the top floor and roof of that house of multiple joys a jumble of tightrope walkers slithered back and forth, and there were seesaws, Chinese checkers, mahjongg, ... firecrackers, lottery tickets, and marriage brokers".
6.On 14 August 1937 it was the site of the Great World bombing, or "Black Saturday". It was the second day of the Battle of Shanghai between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. Great World had thrown open its doors for refugees fleeing the fighting in the Chinese and Japanese zones of the city for the relative safety of the Shanghai International Settlement (where Great World was located). Two bombs from a damaged Republic of China Air Force bomber were accidentally released and exploded in front of Great World. The pilot, fearing the plane would crash, had intended to release the bombs into the large uninhabited space of the nearby Shanghai Race Course, but the bombs were rolled too early. About two thousand people, made up of shoppers, passers - by, and refugees who were standing outside Great World, were killed or injured.
7.After the Communist takeover of Shanghai in 1949, Great World was renamed "People's Amusement Arcade", but reverted to the old name in 1958. Closed during the Cultural Revolution, in 1974 the site became the "Shanghai Youth Palace". On 25 January 1981, Great World was re-established, and renamed "Great World Entertainment Centre".
8.It was closed in 2003 due to an outbreak of the SARS epidemic, and then reopened at its centennial after repairs, in March 2017.
