Binjiang Avenue

This guide to Binjiang Avenue in Shanghai starts with a rusted iron anchor standing alone on the pavement, no ship in sight. It traces the promenade back to 1862, when a British merchant named Nicholson opened one of China's first modern shipyards on this stretch of the Huangpu, and follows it through a 1949 state takeover and the 1978 launch of the Shaoxing, a ten-thousand-ton freighter and China's first ship built for export. Look downriver for the long brick shed with a glass gap cut through its middle.