The first extensive repairs to the bridge were made in 1881, with 4,012 taels spent on re-planking the roadway and footpaths.

Sometime after the Public Garden at the northern end of the Bund opened in 1886, and due to its proximity, the Waibaidu bridge was also called the "Garden Bridge" in English.

Colloquially, the bridge was also known as the 'Beggars' Bridge" or "Bridge of Sighs" by 1873, because "here may be seen the most abject poverty and human misery, - sights pitiful enough to draw tears from the eyes of the gorgeous granite-stone dragons who watch the passing, living stream of human wretchedness.
The deformed, the leprous, the blind, and the most hideous and disgusting semblance of humanity squat in rows and knots along the sides" of this bridge.
The first extensive repairs to the bridge were made in 1881, with 4,012 taels spent on re-planking the roadway and footpaths.
Sometime after the Public Garden at the northern end of the Bund opened in 1886, and due to its proximity, the Waibaidu bridge was also called the "Garden Bridge" in English.
Colloquially, the bridge was also known as the 'Beggars' Bridge" or "Bridge of Sighs" by 1873, because "here may be seen the most abject poverty and human misery, - sights pitiful enough to draw tears from the eyes of the gorgeous granite-stone dragons who watch the passing, living stream of human wretchedness. The deformed, the leprous, the blind, and the most hideous and disgusting semblance of humanity squat in rows and knots along the sides" of this bridge.
Waibaidu Bridge