Jiefang North Road

Jiefang North Road (解放北路) is the banking street of the old concessions, and it began as Victoria Road. In 1870 the British concession built the first road inside any Tianjin concession, running from the old customs house to the Astor Hotel, and it is now Jiefang North Road. The banks followed: in 1923 the HSBC bought a plot on the concession's middle street, today's Jiefang North Road, and built a new branch, and in 1926 the Yokohama Specie Bank put up its classical headquarters on Victoria Road. The sources call the bank buildings on this road the most typical example of the variety of Tianjin's Western architecture, and name the HSBC building with its Ionic colonnade and the Astor Hotel in British classical style.