From the 1860s, a currency exchange office began to operate, later a banking house - the private bank "Sokal&Lilien". In 1908-1909, a new multi-storey building was built on this site, at 12 Hetmanski Street (now Svobody Avenue), designed and built by the architectural bureau of Michal Ułam. Even before World War I, a branch of the Viennese Union-Bank was located here, which after the war and the financial crisis of the early 1920s was revived as the Union Bank. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Advance Bank (Bank Zaliczkowy) was located in the same building. In the center of the image is a tram track of an electric tram, on the right is a metal pavilion of a tram stop, the central point of the electric tram.