Victoria Street was initially referred to as Rochor Street in the 1820s and subsequently as Marbro Street in the 1830s before it was finally named after Queen Victoria (1819-1901) of Great Britain. One of the prominent landmarks along this street was the St. Joseph’s Church (right foreground). The building was built by the Portuguese Roman Catholic Church in Singapore and was completed in 1912 in the Gothic style with its facade designed to resemble a Latin cross. Many of the Chinese book retailers in the area relocated to the nearby Bras Basah Complex (left foreground) in the 1980s, which is known as Book City, or ‘Shu Cheng’ in Mandarin. The open space next to Brash Basah Complex (centre foreground) between North Bridge Road and Victoria Street is now the site of the new National Library Building, which was opened in 2005 as a replacement for the demolished library building at Stamford Road.
