Guangqi Nan Lu 光启南路 is the southern part of Guangqi Road. This street name, assigned in 1931, commemorates the famous local scientist Xu Guangqi 徐光启. Guangqi Road, with its southern extension South Guangqi Road, was once the only straight and wide avenue in Shanghai, running from the entrance of the county magistrate’s office (yamen) 县署衙门 all the way to the Big South Gate 大南门 and then out of the walled city.

...Xu Guangqi’s children and grandchildren were active Catholics who built chapels, spread the faith among locals and hosted pilgrims. The clan became very influential in Shanghai, with properties all over the county. In 1846, prompted by the opening of Shanghai port for foreign trade, Jesuits returned to China. They found a large number of practicing Catholics and met Xu’s descendants living west of Shanghai, in Xujiahui 徐家汇 ("Xu Family Junction"), Missionaries also learned that the Xus worshipped the memory of their famous ancestor in a “pagan” manner, in an ancestral hall in the walled city, burning incense in front of Xu Guangqi’s image and performing regular sacrifices. It was common practice for wealthy clans to build ancestral halls – family temples devoted to the worship of the clan’s progenitor. The altar constructed by Xu’s children in the seventeenth century still exists, at No. 6 inside Lane 250, on South Guangqi Road. The elongated building with a pitched roof is subdivided into tailoring and printing workshops, one of which still uses a turn-of-the-century hand press. The alley leading to the hall is lined with compact residences dating back to the Ming era, unrecognizable due to repeated reconstruction and new veneers...