Xu Haitao
Huguangguan Street, only the old Chengdu people know this name, after the completion of Dongfeng Road in 1959, it has never been used again.
There is a map from the 1940s that clearly sees the location of Lake Kwong Kwan Street. At that time, Huguangguan Street was not long, starting from Shuyuan Main Street (now south of the second section of Hongxing Road), Shangbei Dajin Street (now north of the third section of Hongxing Road), and facing Cotton Street (now west of Dacisi Road) in the east. It is bordered by Zongfu Street to the west, Fuxing Street to the north, and Zhengke Jia Lane to the south.
- Street Map from the 1940s-
The history of this street dates back to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
At that time, due to the war at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the population of Sichuan was sharply reduced and productivity declined, and the Qing government implemented the immigration policy of "filling Sichuan with lakes and filling in Sichuan".
In that era, outsiders generally had to build guild halls in Chengdu, because there was a Huguang Guild Hall located on this street, so it was named Huguangguan Street.
This street was famous at that time, and below is the most representative "Huguangguan Street Memory" in the hearts of the old Chengdu people.
1. Chengdu Tongrentang
Speaking of Huguangguan Street, we can't help but say the "Tongrentang" here.
At present, there are two Tongrentang on the east side of Zongfu Road, one south and one north.
Although both are called "TongRen Tang", they are actually two completely different stores.
To the south is the Chengdu branch of Tongrentang in Beijing.
To the north is the "Chengdu TongrenTang" created by Chen Luminous.
Chen Luminous was originally from Linjiang County, Jiangxi Province, and in the fifth year of Qianlong (1740), when there was a great drought in Jiangxi Province, he left his hometown to come to Chengdu and walked the streets and alleys to make a living by selling herbs.
Slowly with a little money, he set up a stall on Huguangguan Street, and later bought land and built a shop.
On April 28, the 45th year of Qianlong (1780), the signboard of "Tongrentang" was officially opened.
Boss Chen is not as business-minded as the boss of Tongrentang in Beijing, and has been operating the shops on Huguangguan Street, neither expanding production nor associating.
The place of Chen Guangming's TongrenTang has not changed, and the production and operation methods of the former store and the factory have not changed.
After liberation, the public-private partnership has changed.
2. Sakae Land
In Huguangguan Street, not only is the pharmacy famous, but there is also the most famous restaurant in Chengdu, "Rong Paradise".
In 1912, the three brothers Blu-ray Jian, Blue Glory and Blu-ray Bi co-founded Rongyuan, which was initially located in Xinglong'an on Huguangguan Street.
-Trademark sign of RongYuan Park-
Looking back at history, Rongyuan Park can be said to be the "Whampoa Military Academy" in chengdu's Sichuan cuisine industry.
Rongyuan, which has the reputation of "authentic Sichuan taste", has left countless mellow and delicious classic dishes after decades of careful study.
It has also trained a group of skilled celebrity chefs in the Sichuan cuisine department, such as Zhang Songyun, Kong Daosheng, Liu Yueyun, Zhu Weixin, Zeng Guohua, Hua Xincang, Mao Qichen, Zhou Haiqiu and others, all of whom are from the "Blue School".
Among them, Zeng Guohua followed blu-ray to learn art at the age of 12, and was particularly good at making big dishes, such as a pint of stuffed sea cucumber, Qingdan bird's nest, dry roast shark fin, braised bear paw and so on.
At that time, Mr. Blu-ray Jian entered the kitchen as an apprentice, entered the industry at the age of 13, and the chef generally went out of the school for 5 years, but when he was 16 years old, he made three tables full of Han, alarming Chengdu.
With great understanding and sensitivity, through asceticism, he stood out from thousands of chefs and eventually became a generation of masters of the founding sect.
After that, he founded RongYuan, which integrated the south and the north, and created more than 300 dishes in his lifetime.
In the past, sichuan cuisine did not have a banquet bureau, he first produced more than 30 kinds of banquet formats, and opened the first restaurant in the modern sense of Sichuan cuisine.
More importantly, he has cultivated many excellent apprentices, until today, the blue school is half of sichuan cuisine, and nearly half of the sichuan cuisine masters are his apprentices and grandsons, making great contributions to the pioneering and development of Sichuan cuisine.
3. Shuyi Cinema
Huguangguan Street not only has food, but also a movie theater.
In the past, on the west side of Huguangguan Street, near the intersection of Zhengke Jia Lane, there was a building called "Shu Great Theater".
Before liberation, it was called the Theater, which was actually a professional cinema.
The address is at No. 28 Huguangguan Street (later No. 47), the former site of the moderate hotel, which was built in the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938).
In the early spring of 1937, Li Zhaonan, who was then the director of the communication department at the "Chuankang Appeasement Director's Office," consulted with Wu Dequan and others who had previously run a theater in Chongqing To build a new type of cinema in the downtown area of Rongcheng, and invited Li Liangshu, who was working in the Sichuan Provincial Government, to participate in the preparatory work.
Li Zhaonan also invited colleagues and financial circles to raise shares (500 yuan per share of silver dollars), raising a total of 30,000 yuan.
Engineer Xu Baohai was responsible for design, and the construction plant run by Lin Qingquan contracted the infrastructure project, with a total cost of 24,000 yuan.
At the same time as the construction of the theater, Wu Dequan went to Shanghai with a huge amount of money to order a full set of projection equipment from the Dutch Philips Foreign Firm in Shanghai, and ordered 1200 spring soft seat leather flap seats from the Shanghai Dahua Iron Factory.
Soon after, the "July 7 Incident" and the "August 13 Incident" broke out, and the Japanese attacked Shanghai on a large scale.
After the fall of Shanghai, the Japanese army blocked the Wusongkou waterway, and the two key equipment ordered by the theater in Shanghai could not be transported, which brought a great blow to the preparation of the theater.
In desperation, he turned to renting a set of projection equipment called "Cai Si Yikang" by Li Boqing (a Hubei native), and Li's students Mengzilin and Liu Chunlin escorted the machine to Chengdu, while doing the screening work and training students.
The seats were customized by Cong Rong Wood Factory on South Street of Chengdu Drum Tower, and the stage curtain was made of big red velvet cloth, which was opened and closed by an electric control switch.
After a year of construction and the installation of supporting equipment, a Shuyi Cinema with a hall and 1,200 seats was finally inaugurated on the first day of the first lunar month (January 31, 1938) in the 27th year of the Republic of China, and a grand opening ceremony was held.
The premiere film was "The Last Car of Madrid" produced by Paramount in the United States. Shuyi Cinema is also the premiere cinema of "Izumi Hibiscus".
At the premiere, in addition to using large pictures, stills, film instructions, etc., a band was hired to promote it on the street: colorful, ten-color, and hundred-color giant films.
In 1950, the Shuyi Cinema was taken over by the Military Control Commission, and military representatives Fang Yi, Ai Qing, and Wang Tao were sent to manage the cinema.
Later, the Chengdu Federation of Trade Unions paid for the theater.
The funds sold by the theater are distributed to the employees, of which the shares belong to bureaucratic landlords and capitalists, some of which are confiscated, and some depend on the completion of rent reduction and mortgage reduction.
On March 1, 1951, Shuyi Cinema was officially renamed "Chengdu Workers Cinema".
In July 1957, the site was rebuilt.
In September 1958, due to the expansion of Dongfeng Road Retreat Street, it was suspended for one month.
In August 1959, due to the sinking of the foundation of the machine room, it was a dangerous building, and it could only be screened at night in the temporary shed of the lounge.
On August 23 of that year, the Construction Workers' Club in Caojia Lane in North China was rented out to screen the film as a "Workers' Cinema Branch". At the end of 1959, the branch was abolished, and the original site in the city was a dangerous house, which was soon all demolished, and the staff was also assigned to the brother theaters in the city.
-Shuyi Cinema in 1950-
From the establishment of the Shuyi (workers) cinema to the end, it took 21 years and disappeared for 40 years, but the old Chengdu people are still deeply impressed by this, which shows that the influence at that time was huge.
4. I work with the Provincial Library
In the mid-1970s, the "Sichuan Provincial Library" was built on the site of the former Workers' Cinema.
At that time, the new building was a five-story building.
At that time, I lived in the first welfare area of Chengdu Seamless Steel Pipe Factory, and often rushed to the No. 4 bus to the provincial library to read books.
Now I think that I am very grateful to the Sichuan Provincial Library for providing me with a space to study, if I had not studied in the provincial library, I might not have been admitted to university after the resumption of the college entrance examination in 1977.
In the 1980s, a foreign bookstore was also opened across the street from the Sichuan Provincial Library.
Today, the Sichuan Provincial Library has built a new library on Renmin West Road.
This street is now called Zongfu Road.
The original famous Huguangguan Street has been submerged in the long river of history.