Spiffed-Up Dirty Bar Street Gets Mixed Reception as Businesses Struggle to Rebound

Lush, freshly planted flowers. Wide, manicured walkways. A perfect place to take your date for a stroll.

All of these descriptions would never, ever spring to mind when most Beijingers thought of the stip north of Taikooli infamously nicknamed "Dirty Bar Street." Yet they are now shockingly apt, as rampant construction winds down on the once-wild party throughway.

Bruce Connolly, a journalist and photographer, snapped these photos of the newly neat strip today:

Connolly says he's amazed by "how quickly they got it finished. I was photographing there on Friday and it felt like a long time to go. Yesterday, they were working on building facades ... giant cranes working. Today, finished ... It looks bright and clean and if developed properly could be an asset for the city. It does look better than expected and much better than even a few days ago."

Before that, much of the strip was torn up, with bricks strewn about and ruts jutting every which way, as the construction reached its apex. The work had begun this past spring but intensified in recent weeks, with scaffolding quickly being erected (much of which made entering on-site buildings like Tongli Studio a challenge), while piles of rubble cropped up (making a stroll up the strip cumbersome, and access to many side alleys all but impossible).

And, of course, before that, the strip was known for a very different sort of turmoil, as its seedy bars blared music that was as questionable as the "alcohol" they served. The strip's many cheap nail salons and pirated DVD shops, meanwhile, attracted bargain-hunting patrons by day. The neighborhood once had a trendier vibe though, thanks to its well-regarded (or at least popular) Western establishments like Aperitivo, Luga's, Muse, First Floor, Kokomo, and especially Biteapitta. But aside from the popular Middle Eastern eatery, those other joints have long since seen better days, with Muse even shutting down its Dirty Bar Street branch and Aperitivo folding in favor of a fancier Sanlitun Soho location.

Yes, it'd be safe to say that a more debaucherous and depraved period has persisted on the strip past dusk. But those days seem to be long gone now that the construction is winding down, at least in the eyes of Cliff Yasay, general manager of Luga's Villa, located just off the strip's north end. Yasay says "Now it's not 'Dirty Bar Street' anymore. That's all I can say. It's not the same feeling I guess. It looks cleaner, and it actually might work well for the future, I'm not sure. We'll have to wait and see. But it doesn't look like the regular bar street anymore."

Biteapitta owner Avi Shabtai has even more hesitations, but for different reasons. He says, "For us, the sun is not rising yet," because Tongli Studio, where he operates his business, is still covered in scaffolding, meaning customers still have to amble to get inside. He doesn't expect that to change until after the Plenum, which has disrupted numerous routines across town. Still, Shabtai says he "always" remains optimistic about the strip's prospects and is looking forward to what comes next.

Connolly has an even sunnier outlook than Shabtai's, and shares none of Yasay's nostalgia for the neighborhood's recent, wilder past. "The workers completed the job satisfactorily, at record speed and in all weathers," he says, and that appears to be a good thing, because "in recent years, I did not particularly like the street – it did feel dirty in various ways but was interesting for photography. I never went to any of the bars there – I have my loyalty to other hideouts." But now he could see himself coming back to this "improved" strip with its "nice lights, flower beds, and paved street surface."

This arguably positive outcome was by no means a given, with many longtime Beijingers lamenting the initial construction this past spring as yet another affront on the capital's gritty, character-rife street life by planners with aims to blandly sanitize. Other passersby simply balked at how messy the construction became as the workers scurried to finish, making the strip a practical no-go zone for all but the most determined of First Floor and Biteapitta regulars. Connolly recalls how "the construction at first seemed confusing, with older structures being pulled down."

And while Connolly began to approve of the measures as time went on, Yasay struggled to see an upside. "During the time of the construction, we were kind of suffering. They blocked off the roads. People had to find different routes to get to Luga's, though some still came."

As such, the end of the renovations and the beginning of the strip's new era can't come quickly enough, says Yasay, who above all wants debris and barriers removed so that his business can get back on track. And though Connolly has some concerns about what's next – from lingering barriers and scaffolding, to motorcycles and cars already infringing on what he hopes will be a strictly pedestrian street – he sees little to lament and much to look forward to. Or, as he puts it: "This area never really had an Old Beijing feel like Dashilar – it was a relatively new and often unplanned, haphazard area. If properly managed, it could create a ‘New Beijing Feel.'"

More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @MulKyle

Photos courtesy of Bruce Connolly, Avi Shabtai