Lo Ren Street

On a morning in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, one corner is heard long before it is seen. A hammer beats steadily on a red-hot iron bar under the eaves. Firelight glows inside a long, narrow house. The smell of coal and hot iron drifts in from the end of the street. This is Lò Rèn Street.

According to a Hanoi newspaper, Lò Rèn Street is only about 128 meters long and 6 meters wide. It lies in Hàng Bồ ward, in Hoàn Kiếm. The street runs from Thuốc Bắc Street to Hàng Gà Street. Hàng Đồng Street crosses it on the way. The street takes only a few minutes to walk. But its name tells a much longer story about a craft.

The name today is not the original one. The Hanoi Moi newspaper says that early in the 19th century, this stretch of street was called Hàng Bừa, after the harrow. In some places it was called Hàng Cuốc, after the hoe. Both names came straight from the farm tools that the smiths hammered out for the people of the capital. Late in the 19th century, the French began opening up the streets. By then the bellows in front of the houses were so familiar that the name Lò Rèn appeared. It means forge. On French maps the street was written Rue des Forgerons, the street of the blacksmiths.

The craft arrived from a village. Two newspapers agree that its main craft village was Hoè Thị, in the former Từ Liêm district. Its smiths carried their bellows, anvils, hammers and coal pots down to the Tân Khai and Tân Lập area. That area lay in Thuận Mỹ canton, in the old district of Thọ Xương. The smiths settled there. After them came smiths from the villages of Đa Sĩ and Đa Hội. Smiths from Nam Định and Thanh Hoá also set up their bellows here. For a time, nearly every house on both sides of the street had a forge.

The Hanoi Moi newspaper describes the old products. They were plowshares, harrows, hoes, sickles, reaping hooks, brush knives for clearing field banks, and scissors. These were farm tools and cutting tools for the household and the field. As life changed, the smiths of the street adapted. The Nhân Dân newspaper says they began to make bolts, ornamental iron doors, fences, gates and hinges. More recently, the work has leaned toward repairing and making drill bits and chisel points for construction. The same forge kept turning out different goods as the city changed.

In the middle of the street, at number 1, stands a small monument, the Lò Rèn communal house. According to the Hanoi newspaper cited earlier, elders of the smiths' guilds say the house was built between 1875 and 1878. It was the place where the guilds worshipped the founder of their craft together, and where they held their meetings. In 2000, the communal house was ranked as a historical and cultural monument.

Among the 36 streets of the Old Quarter, Lò Rèn stands out in one way. The heat of the craft can still be felt on the street. On Hàng Bạc Street, the jewelers' hammers make only a faint tapping. On Lãn Ông Street, the air smells of cinnamon and star anise. On Lò Rèn Street, a passerby may hear a hammer pounding hot iron from a forge that is still burning. The Nhân Dân newspaper and Vietnamplus recorded a smith named Nguyễn Phương Hùng, born in 1960. He was still swinging his hammer beside a forge at the corner where Lò Rèn meets Hàng Đồng. Even so, the forges on the street today are far fewer than in the past.

On this small street in the heart of Hanoi, a forge is still lit each morning, carrying on a craft that has passed through many generations. The hammer rings out from the old eaves, and behind a narrow door the firelight glows red. In today's Hanoi, Lò Rèn Street holds the warmth of an age of smiths, and a fire that has not gone out.