Astor Museum Description

It’s hardly something you’d expect – a hotel museum that has probably one of the best private collections in north China – but with a host of historical documents, postcards, newspapers and photographs, a film exhibition (over 100 movies have used the hotel as a location), old possessions and artifacts, this is a full trip through the highs and lows that Tianjin and the Astor have witnessed, from 1937, when it was renamed the Asian Hotel by the occupying Japanese, to present-day visits from celebrities and politicians. The entrance is by a (no longer functioning) Otis elevator – the first in the city in 1924.