Astor House Hotel

In 1846, a British captain named Richard build Richard's Hotel, the predecessor of today's Astor House Hotel. The overall facade basically belongs to neoclassic style.

Because the owner was a captain, the building was the very image of a huge ship. In the eyes of the then Shanghai residents, Richard's Hotel was associated to almost anything ' modern'.

In 1882, when Shanghai had the first application of electric lights, 7 of the 15 lights were lit up there. The earliest performances of the Circuses in Shanghai were shown there. It was among the first places to be equipped with automatic telephones... At the beginning of last century, it has met standards of today's hotels. Celebrities as Russell, Einstein, and Chaplin etc were once guests of this hotel.