This centuries-old shopping street, although tarted up for tourists, retains several timeworn emporia selling silk, cloth shoes and traditional Chinese medicine. Once part of a vice-infested enclave of opera theatres, opium dens and bordellos west of Qianmen Dajie, it was put to the torch during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, and subsequently rebuilt during the Republic of China.
Thoroughly scrubbed and sanitised by the Communists in the 1950s, Dashilar received a major pre-Olympics makeover in 2007 that robbed the street of much of its charm, though it was less destructive than the wholesale razing and rebuilding of neighbouring Qianmen Dajie.
The warren of hutong lanes orbiting Dashilar Commercial St, and further west Dashilar West St, has fared much better. The government have adopted a gentler approach to urban rejuvenation, influenced by the presence of Beijing Design Week, held at Dashilar annually since 2014.