Yonghegong Dajie Hit With Yet Another Round of Renovations

Less than a year after the Yonghegong neighborhood was granted the Great Brickening treatment, laying to waste numerous religious curios shops and fortune tellers in its wake, it seems like it's high time for the tourist thoroughfare to receive another facelift. As of this morning, scaffolding has been erected along the entire east side of Yonghegong Dajie as well as the west side of the street, directly across from Lama Temple.

A number of businesses along the affected street have already been informed that they will need to close for at least the next few months. Others wait for news on how exactly the renovations will affect them.

Speaking to the Beijinger, Thibaut Lafarge, manager of Café de la Poste, described how "workers came this morning to dress the entire street with scaffolding. We do not know exactly what kind of renovation they are installing; some have talked about it's for enlarging the street, others talk about renovation of front buildings and rooftops. In this latter case, Café de la Poste may be affected. We will have more info in the coming hours."

Matthew Hu of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center told the Beijinger, "I guess this is not to demolish anything, but just to refurbish for the big event," referring to the upcoming 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which will commence with an orgy of red on Oct 1.

READ: Liangma River Drained for Construction of New Park

More future-looking theories as to why Yonghegong attracts so much attention from the authorities is that come 2020 it will be the terminus station of the Airport Express line, following an extension from Dongzhimen.

Currently, it is unclear what will come from this latest round of works. The scaffolding lies a sizeable distance from the shopfronts which could indicate that the bricking of businesses is not a priority but that it's aesthetic changes that lie ahead. Whatever the outcome, those in the area can expect to live with the blue screens of death for the coming weeks.

No idea what the Great Brickening is? Catch up with all the mayhem, right here.

Photos: Garth Wilson, Tautvile Daugelaite, Jeremiah Jenne