The ground level of the Oriental Pearl Tower houses a comprehensive Shanghai city history museum, covering the city's development from a Ming dynasty fishing village through the concession period, Japanese occupation, 1949, and the Reform era. The museum is well-resourced and contains extraordinary period artefacts — a recreated 1930s Shanghai street scene, original concession-era documents, and one of the best collections of old Shanghai photographs in the city.
The museum can be visited without purchasing the tower observation ticket; the separate admission is lower. Open daily; allow 90 minutes. The dioramas are the highlight: full-scale reproductions of 1930s lane houses, markets, and Shanghai jazz venues populated with wax figures.