We are standing at the mouth of Suzhou Creek, where it runs into the Huangpu River. The steel bridge in front of you is the Waibaidu Bridge, known in English as the Garden Bridge. It is the third bridge on this spot and the first all-steel bridge ever built in China. Everything north of it was the American settlement; everything south was the British one. So for most of a century, crossing this bridge meant crossing from one world into another.
我们现在站在苏州河汇入黄浦江的河口。眼前这座钢桥叫外白渡桥，英文名 Garden Bridge。它是这个位置上的第三座桥，也是中国第一座全钢结构的桥。桥北边过去是美租界，南边是英租界。所以有将近一百年的时间，过这座桥等于从一片天地走进另一片天地。
The first bridge here was wooden, put up in 1856 by a British businessman named Wills. He charged a toll1, and the rate depended on who you were. Chinese residents paid; foreigners crossed free. People resented it for seventeen years. In 1873 the Municipal Council built its own wooden bridge alongside and let everyone cross without paying. That is where the Chinese name comes from. Bai du means to cross for nothing, and the name has stuck through two rebuilds.
这里的第一座桥是木桥，1856 年一个姓威尔斯的英国商人搭的。过桥要给钱，给多少看你是谁，中国人付费，外国人免费。这口气上海人憋了十七年。1873 年工部局在旁边另造一座木桥，谁走都不收钱。中文名字就是这么来的，「白渡」就是白白地过，两次重建过去了，这个名字一直留着。
The bridge you see went up in 1907. The steel came from Darlington in England, shipped out in pieces and riveted2 together here. Two spans4, a hundred and six metres, and a lattice of rivets you can still count from underneath. Look at the trusses3. There is not a single weld in the original structure, because welding was not yet trusted for a load like this. Trams ran across it until 1975, and it still carries traffic today.
各位看到的这座建于 1907 年。钢材从英国达林顿运来，散件到岸，在这里一颗一颗铆起来。两跨，一百零六米，从桥底下往上看，铆钉现在还数得清。请看桁架，原来的结构上一道焊缝都没有，那个年代还不放心把这么大的荷载交给焊接。有轨电车在桥上跑到 1975 年，今天它照样通车。
In 2008 the whole bridge was floated away. Barges lifted the two spans off their piers and carried them downriver to a shipyard, where every rivet was checked and the piers underneath were rebuilt. Ten months later it came back and was set down in the same place, and it reopened to traffic in April 2009. Shanghai listed it as a protected structure, so it had to return as itself rather than as a copy. Now turn around. Behind you is the Russian consulate and the Broadway Mansions; ahead of you the whole curve of the Bund opens up. This is the best place to start the walk.
2008 年整座桥被拖走了。驳船把两跨从桥墩上抬下来，顺流运到船厂，每一颗铆钉都验过，下面的桥墩重做。十个月后，也就是 2009 年 2 月，它运回来放回原位，当年 4 月重新通车。上海把它定为保护建筑，所以它得以自己的身份回来，而不是换一座复制品。请各位转身，身后是俄罗斯领事馆和上海大厦，前面外滩整条弧线就展开了。从这里起步走外滩最合适。