Former Site of the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office

Former Site of the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office

The former site of the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office is a cultural relic protection unit of Liaoning Province.

The former site of the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office is located in Qinqin Community, Yuejin Subdistrict Office, Zhanqian District. It was formerly used as the Yingkou Children's Library and is currently occupied by the Binhe Branch of Yingkou Bank.

Niuzhuang was a commercial town located on the east bank of the Liao River, about 45 kilometers northeast of Yingkou City. After the Second Opium War, the 1858 Sino-British Treaty of Tianjin stipulated that Niuzhuang would be opened as a trading port. In May 1861, Thomas Taylor Meadows, the first British consul to Niuzhuang, arrived at the mouth of the Liao River aboard the warship HMS Spartan. After inspecting Niuzhuang, he concluded that Yingkou—being closer to the sea, with a deeper harbor, wider river, and proximity to the urban area—had better natural conditions than Niuzhuang. He then unilaterally designated Yingkou as Niuzhuang, making it the only foreign trading port in Northeast China at the time. Thereafter, various foreign powers arrived one after another, and the number of expatriate merchants in China grew steadily. In the early 20th century, the Japanese residents in Yingkou established the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office here, forming a civil organization.

The Residents' Group Office was originally the site of the Chinese Eastern Railway Bureau’s Niuzhuang branch. After Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the site came under Japanese control. In 1907, the Japanese rebuilt it into the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office. During renovation work in May 1986, relics such as the commemorative plaque marking the completion of the Japanese Residents' Group Office renovation, Japanese flags, and correspondence were discovered in the ceiling.

The Residents' Group Office was built at a street corner and features a two-story wooden roof truss brick-and-stone structure, standing 19 meters tall with a floor area of 816.4 square meters. The building has a V-shaped floor plan, with the entrance in the center and protruding hexagonal corner towers on both sides. The building's façade is simple and bright: the first floor has semi-circular arched windows, while the second floor's flat windows are adorned with pediments. The entrance is finished with cement to resemble roughly hewn stonework, topped with a square dome, and slightly projected. The corners of the protruding side towers use quoins, with circular domes on top, giving the façade a strong sense of stability. Judging from the architectural style, structure, and materials of the Residents' Group Office, it closely resembles the former Yokohama Specie Bank Dalian Branch, designed by Ota Tsuyoshi of the Architecture Department of the South Manchuria Railway Company. This reflects the eclectic architectural style popular internationally in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Architecture Department of the South Manchuria Railway Company was relocated from Tokyo to Dalian in 1907. From its inception, it was the largest Japanese architectural design organization in Northeast China and led Japanese architectural activities. It is highly likely that the renovated Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office was also designed by this organization.

In 2009, the original user, Yingkou Children's Library, and Yingkou Bank carried out a usage rights exchange. Yingkou Bank subsequently renovated the historic building.

In 1988, the People's Government of Liaoning Province (Liaozhengfa [1988] No. 100) designated the former site of the Niuzhuang Residents' Group Office as a provincial-level cultural relic protection unit. The cultural relic protection scope and construction control zone defined by the Liaoning Provincial People's Government (Liaozhengfa [1993] No. 8) are as follows: the protection scope extends 38 meters east to the west wall of the Yingkou Salt Field, 27.5 meters north to the centerline of Liaohe Street, 3 meters south to the south wall of the Children's Library, and 17 meters west to the east gable wall of the Municipal Health Bureau family residential building. The Class II construction control zone extends beyond the protection scope: east to the west gable wall of the former Construction Primary School teaching building, north to the roadside curb of Liaohe Street, west to the west gable wall of the Health Bureau family residential building, and south to 43 meters north of the Central Hospital.

Information source: Municipal Culture, Sports, News, and Broadcasting Bureau Contributor: Dong Wenjie

Qinqin Community: Qinqin Community…… Detailed information about Qinqin Community++

Further reading:

· Fourth Batch of Cultural Relic Protection Units in Liaoning Province