Excerpts from the book
...Changsuwon Palace
...Ryugyong Hotel
...Ryunhwanson Street
Ryunhwanson Street
Vanished site.
Official propaganda blasts this street's construction as a "criminal"
sabotage. How could a street be a crime against the state?
The story begins with the 1955 unveiling of what was originally called "Potongmun
Street." Kim Il Sung's scribes link the street to his political rivals,
the Soviet-oriented "factionalists."
Kim found fault with the street's three-story brick apartment houses. He condemned
them as "not agreeable to the sentiments and customs of the Korean people,"
particularly because of the heating (the buildings probably lacked ondol,
traditional heated floors). Even after this problem was fixed, Kim ordered
that the buildings be torn down as soon as the economic situation allowed.
However, as time passed, everyone forgot about Kim's order - everyone except
for his dutiful son. Kim Jong Il "wanted to obliterate even the last
vestige of the factionalists' harm to construction and turn the street into
an ideal one which would please the great leader." And so in 1979 the
subversive street was demolished.
So goes the official explanation. In fact, the apartment houses were designed
not by factionalists but by Hungarian architects. Did Kim's opponents really
play a role, or were they simply scapegoated? And what accounts for the bitterness
of the condemnation leveled at these buildings?