View From Jing Shan Looking North—Winter 1981

Jing Shan, or Coal Mountain, is a small hill in the center of Beijing, immediately north of the Forbidden City. The hill itself was made from the earth removed to make the moat around the Forbidden City. It is a favorite vantage point for viewing central Beijing. The tower in the distance was one of the gates in the old city walls. The walls were torn down shortly after the Communists took control, in the 1950’s, to make way for roads. The first “Ring Road” follows the old city walls around central Beijing.

I took this photo on a late-winter day, and a minor dust storm was brewing, so the visibility was not great. Air quality in those days in Beijing was not particularly good. There was a lot of coal smoke from factories, and nearly all heating in large buildings, as well as private homes, was with coal. Coal-burning steam engine trains were prohibited in , to help the air quality, but steam engines were used elsewhere throughout China, and new steam engines were still being produced. Automobile traffic was a minor source of air pollution at that time.