The Paramount Hotel, with its legendary ballroom, drew the chic and glamorous of Shanghai's social scene. The Paramount featured a glass dance floor over colored lights, an in-ballroom bar, and several lounges for more intimate social engagements. Above, women sit in one of the Paramount's lounges during an evening gathering.
In 1935, an American traveler in Shanghai, Ruth Day, likened dancing on the Paramount's glass floor to "dancing on eggs." The Russian chorus girls may have been a little bawdy for Day: "Their costumes were scant, hats, slippers and a very minute loin cloth."
Virtual Cities Project/Institut d'Asie Orientale
