So is Shanghai the mother of all white elephants? Has $50 billion worth of concrete been poured as monument to a dream that this museum of decrepit Western architecture will live again? There is no finer place to ponder these questions than when gazing across Huangpu River from the rooftop restaurant, M on the Bund, newly opened by Hong Kong restaurateur Michelle Garnaut (of M at the Fringe).
From the top of what is now the Huaxia Bank building (formerly the Nissin Shipping Building), you can gaze down on the illuminated glories of the Bund. Then turn your head a few degrees and count how many rooms in the new Pudong financial district across the river seem to be occupied.
On a night last week as dusk fell and the river mists rose, cloaking its futuristic towers in mystery, only a scattering of lights were burning in China's new financial centre.
A band of brave foreign bankers have forded the Huangpu to set up camp in Pudong at the urging of the Shanghai government. So it is now chiefly Chinese banks which command those grand buildings so resonant of Shanghai's commercial glory.
By no small irony, the old Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building has been restored and occupied by the Pudong Development Bank, the one which has amassed considerable capital by selling off Pudong's land to eager speculators.
The Bund may now be destined to become a tourist destination rather than see restoration of its banking activities. Ms Garnaut thinks she may inadvertently be a beachhead for a wave of Hong Kongers intent on capitalising on its historic allure.
One group has spent years in negotiations to restore the old Shanghai Club, formerly known as the Dongfang Hotel and then the Kentucky Fried Chicken on the Bund. Another is trying to wrap up marathon talks about reviving the old American Club, another glorious and neglected edifice.
