I have a reference to a church on “Canal Street” that existed at some point in Taipei. Does anybody know what the modern street name would be? Thanks!
I’d bet money that it’s Xinsheng N/S Road.
WENZHOUJIE maybe.
Xing’an (Hsing An) street (a curvy street that runs east of and parallel to Jilong Rd, and becomes Wolong Street after it crosses Heping East Road Section 3 - between Linguang and Liuzhangli on the brown line) has a canal underneath it according to some locals. It used to be a canal and they put a road over it about 20 years ago.
Yes, Xing’an St. did have a waterway, but the main canal in Taipei back in the day was Xinsheng N/S Rd. And there are a number of churches along it.
Interesting, there is a 雲和街 running perpendicular to it. A close homophone, this is a stab in the dark obviously but I wouldn’t be shocked if more pleasing characters had been substituted for “canal” at some point.
As per usual I don’t in fact have a clue. It may be something we talked about earlier though…
Canal Street is what US GIs used to call Xinsheng S. Road. This was originally part of complex system of canals built in the Taipei basin in the 18th century known as the 瑠公圳 (Liugongjun) . The Xinsheng North and South road canal however was reconstructed by the Japanese in the 1930s for waste water. A small part of a branch is now a very small but pleasant eco park on Wenzhou St.
I don’t think Yunhe St. had a canal below it. For one thing, the name of the canal uses the most common Minnan word 圳 for irrigation canal, not the Mandarin yunhe, which in any event properly refers to canals for navigation.
Although I can’t find any references online, I suspect that Yunhe (雲和) refers to Yunhe County in Zhejiang Province. Yunhe St. intersects with Longquan (龍泉) St. Longquan is also a place in Zhejiang near Yunhe.
Thank you! This would have been an area frequented by resident foreigners say, forty or fifty years ago. I guess that makes Xinsheng S. Rd the most likely candidate. Any idea what (foreign-run) churches there were along it?
Here are some.
台北衛理堂 Wesleyan Church 1953
基督復臨安息日會 Seventh Day Adventist
天主教聖家堂 Holy Family Catholic Church
基督教靈糧宣教大樓 Bread of Life Christian Church
信義會真理堂 Taipei Truth Lutheran Church
基督教懷恩堂 Grace Baptist Church
This also solves the mystery why Xinsheng S. Rd. turns into Songjiang Rd. It is in fact the canal underneath that turns, and Xinsheng N. Rd. merely follows the the natural course of the canal, which is not a straight line. If you go to the northern most point of Xinsheng N. Rd, you can actually see the canal merging into Jilong River.
[quote=“Feiren”]
I don’t think Yunhe St. had a canal below it. For one thing, the name of the canal uses the most common Minnan word 圳 for irrigation canal, not the Mandarin yunhe, which in any event properly refers to canals for navigation.
Although I can’t find any references online, I suspect that Yunhe (雲和) refers to Yunhe County in Zhejiang Province. Yunhe St. intersects with Longquan (龍泉) St. Longquan is also a place in Zhejiang near Yunhe.[/quote]
Good points, I thought about checking if there were any similar China-related street names nearby as that’s not an uncommon pattern, but I didn’t have anything like that kind of dedication 
How do you get to the eco park on Wenzhou street?
If you tell me I will try to figure out where the canal runs under the city. It goes under from here…
It definitely flows from under that parking lot.
Downstream it is literally being paved over as we speak…
Cool.
Can I bug you guys as to the name?
_____ ____ YunhE I reckon.
Another branch of the canal system flows parallel to part of Anhe Road, crosses Renai Road and goes past the 24-hour Eslite, then crosses diagonally across Zhongxiao between Dunhua and Fuxing, goes behind the old Sogo, and flows WNW to the triangle bounded by Xinsheng, Bade and Civic Blvd. In that triangle is a small basketball court built over the canal.
Part of the canal is still visible near the corner of Jilong and Xinyi:
Unreal. This is the first time I have seen the horizontal view function.
liu GONG Jun (____ public canal) checks out with resident expert btw. It is the name given the system at the bridge that goes over it on minchuan too. Feiren really seems to know his/her stuff.
I think tempo gain mentioned that the source of water is/ was the jingmei. It’s mostly people’s toiletes now I imagine.
Anyway, the whole thing is slightly fascinating isn’t it. Ancient canals flowing under the city and all that. Would be nice to have a map of the whole thing.
Liu2 gong1 jun4 (瑠公圳): Grandpa Liu’s Ditches, named after 郭錫瑠.
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%91%A0% … C%E5%9C%B3
Also, by the Xindian MRT station, under the freeway overpass right by the river, is a small, funky post-modern park that commemorates one of the prime water sources of the Liugongjun system. From the postmodern fountainhead, you can follow the canal through backstreets, past a shrine (a “graveyard”) built to commemorate those who died in the canal’s construction. When I visited several months ago, lots of work was being done refurbishing the canal area in the back alley.
Here’s the Xindian park:
Yup. 24.998692 N, 121.534987 E. It’s aptly named Shuiyuan Kuai (水源快).
Off-topic for a moment: Those maps are in Hanyu Pinyin – somewhat screwed up Hanyu Pinyin, but still – and with tone marks. This is a new thing. But no one in this thread mentioned this, though I would normally expect a dance for joy from at least Chris. When did this change happen? It must have been quite recently.