The broad pedestrian avenue running south from Zhengyangmen gate, just below Tiananmen Square, Qianmen Street was the ceremonial approach to the old city and its busiest commercial thoroughfare. The current version is a 2008 reconstruction of its late-Qing appearance — grey-brick shopfronts, decorative archways, and a replica trolley that trundles down the centre — and it is handsome if undeniably sanitised.
The street itself is now given over to chain stores and snack outlets, but it works as a gateway: the genuinely old, atmospheric lanes of Dashilan branch off to the west, and the contrast between the polished avenue and the crooked hutongs behind it is the point. Liveliest in the evening when the lamps come on.