WikiPortallus: Marszałkowska.html

Marszałkowska (lit. Marshal's Street) is one of the main streets of Warsaw's city centre. It links the area of Bank Square in the northern part of it with Plac Unii Lubelskiej (Union of Lublin Square) in the southern end of the city centre.

Geography

Marszalkowska Street meets Aleje Jerozolimskie, at what could be called Poland's main crossroads. From there, the opera, theaters, shops and restaurants can all be reached by hopping on one of the many red and yellow trams that criss-cross the busy downtown boulevards.

History

Marszalkowska street was established by Franciszek Bieliński and opened in 1757.² It was then only a fraction of its present length, running from Królewska Street to Widok Street and flanked by houses standing in their own grounds complete with outbuildings.³ Bieliński (later Łubieński) Palace, which stand at the intersection of Marszałkowska and Królewska Streets, was a gem of Rococo architecture, built by Józef Fontana in 1730.³ In 1896 it was torn down to make place for property development on Królewska Street.³

At the end of the18th century little over a thousand people lived on Marszałkowska Street.³ The growth of the industry and commerce and the spread of urbanization in the Congress Poland in the 1830s and 1840s made it essential to modernize communications. The first railway, running to the Austrian frontie, was opened in 1848, and the Warsaw-Vienna Railway station, built by Enrico Marconi on the corner of Marszałkowska Street and Jerozolimskie Avenue, become the hub of Warsaw’s newly developed city center.³ It had grown into a metropolitan commercial and shopping centre and eventually become the city’s busiest thoroughfare.³ In 1880 a synagogue was built in the Street and Jewish community house next to it.² There are still monumental Jewish cemeteries in Kromołów and in Daszyńskiego Street. A complex of Jewish tenements houses has been preserved until now at Marszałkowska.

The street was almost entirely destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.³ Rebuilding of Warsaw after World War II coincided with emergence of socialist realism. The facades of many buildings in this area show the uninspired architecture style of the communist era.

References

In-line:

^ (English) "Warsaw History". uk.holidaysguide.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2008-09-18.
^ ^a ^b ^c (Polish) "Ul. Marszałkowska". Ilustrowany Atlas Dawnej Warszawy. Retrieved on 2008-09-18.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g (Polish) Dobrosław Kobielski (1984). Widoki dawnej Warszawy (Views of Old Warsaw). Warsaw: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza. ISBN 83-03-00702-5.