History question about a former Student Protest starting at "Sandy Beach" ?

[crouchingdragon]

In the recesses of my mind, I recall reading once, that years ago, Chinese students led a protest in Beijing starting from a place called "Sandy" or "Sand Beach" -(interesting since there is no beach that I am aware of in Beijing). I don't recall if this was the forerunner of the May 4th moment.

Can someone shed some light on this for me ?

[huisheng]

It's not literally a beach. They started from a building called 沙滩红楼 according to my googling.

[crouchingdragon]

Many Thanks Huisheng,

My earlier Goggling-efforts were to no avail.

Please, before I continue to search for more, can you or anyone indulge me with more info:

Is this building where the "May 4th Movement" began (沙滩红楼) ? "

Do you have any idea what this building has Shantan included in its name ?

Thanks again,

[huisheng]

沙滩 is only the name of a location in 北大 where the building is. It's built of red bricks, hence the name 红楼. Yes, it's where the movement started. If you know enough Chinese, go there for details.

[roddy]

沙滩 is only the name of a location in 北大 where the building is.

This isn't the current location of Beida though - at the time Beida was in very central old Beijing - I think it would be just to the north-west of the Forbidden City, but I'm minus a map of Beijing at the moment. The current Beida location was then occupied by Yanjing University and Beida took over / merged with Yanjing at some point.

(half remembered from a 咬文嚼字 article, hope I'm right)

Edit: Ok, took the time to check. Beida was in the 沙滩 area until 1952, when the two universities merged and moved to what is now the Beida campus. The article has the 红楼 as currently home of the 北京沙滩国家文物局. Again in Chinese, there's a history of the building here.

As for why it's got 沙滩 in it's name - well, because it's on 沙滩北街, of course.

[huisheng]

I at first got 沙滩北街 after searching Google with terms "北京" and “沙滩". I suspected 沙滩北街 was what the thread starter was looking for. Just had no idea how it was related to 北大. Now you clear it up for me.

[crouchingdragon]

As for why it's got 沙滩 in it's name - well, because it's on 沙滩北街, of course.

Thank you for both for your insight.

One final question: many Beijing streets seemed to have taken a name based on activities or an event in the area adjacent/near to that specific street.

Any idea how 沙滩 got it's name ? Is there a story about this ?

[studentyoung]

Any idea how 沙滩 got it's name ? Is there a story about this ?

沙滩，

北京地名，位于景山后街与美术馆之间。

地名由来：美术馆边上原来就是一条河，位置大概在现在的北河沿、南河沿一线，过东不压桥、后门桥与什刹海相通，后来给埋在地下了，沙滩就是这条河的河岸，因而由此得名。

另：现东不压桥一带正在进行环境治理，以恢复旧河风貌。

http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=%B1%B1%BE%A9%2C%C9%B3%CC%B2%3B%C3%FB%D7%D6%3B%D3%C9%C0%B4&url=http%3A//erichyx%2Espaces%2Elive%2Ecom/blog/cns%2178bb0356725c103f%21506%2Eentry&p=8b2a944699934eaf589f8e235a5293&user=baidu

It seems that the location of this 沙滩 used to be a river bank with a lot of alluvial sands. That’s why it’s named 沙滩. But now the river bank has been buried underground for a long time, so you can’t see the “sand beach” used to be.

Cheers!