Piotrkowska street

Piotrkowska Street is the main artery of ód, one of the longest trade routes in Europe, with a length of 4.9 km. Piotrkowska Street is an important tourist attraction connecting Freedom Square with Independence Square. From the very beginning, this street was the central axis around which a large city grew. Initially, it was only a trade route, which gradually turned into a showcase of the city with recreation areas and shopping areas.

The first roadside settlements appeared along the street in 1821, when industrial development began here by order of the President of the province of Mazovia. The settlement was named "New Town" and was located south of the "old" Lodz. In 1815, the street was named Piotrkowska in the part that connected two market squares. Lodz has never had a classic city center, and it was Piotrkowska Street that took on this role.

Until 1990, Piotrkowska Street did not differ much from other city highways in appearance, although it was the most important street in the city. The first step was the gradual reduction of traffic, as well as the relocation of tram lines. In 1990, Polish architects decided to turn the street into a fashionable pedestrian thoroughfare. The road was paved with cobblestones, lanterns and street benches appeared along the street. Tenants began to appear in the former tenement buildings: bars, cafes, shops and restaurants were set up.

Today Piotrkowska Street is the social and commercial center of the city. Almost all the most important administrative offices are located nearby. Most events, city festivals and parties are held here.

 

History

Initially, today's Piotrkowska Street served as a route connecting Piotrków Trybunalski with Zgierz, on the route of which there was a small, roadside urban settlement of Łódź, located in the then dense Łódź Forest. Before 1821, the future street was called the Piotrków route. In 1821, Rajmund Rembieliński - the President of the Commission of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship - started activities aimed at regulating (creating) a factory settlement. The new settlement, called Nowe Miasto, was established in the years 1821–1823 and was located south of the "old" rural Łódź, i.e. the land of the Old Town. The year 1821 is assumed to be the foundation of Piotrkowska Street: a new axis of the route was marked out (straightening its course), an octagonal market square (Rynek Nowe Miasto, today's Plac Wolności) and individual crossroads. The appointment was made by the Commissioner of the Administrative Department of the Commission of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship, Bonifacy Witkowski, who separated construction sites and prepared a document dated May 24, 1821 "Specification of the newly created Settlements for Clothiers in Nowe Miasto and calculation of the Gardens needed for them"[5]. The areas along Piotrkowska and adjacent streets were divided into over 200 plots.

Regulatory plan of the new settlement, including the designation of, among others, the course of Piotrkowska Street and individual plots, entitled "Plan of the situation of regulated cloth gardens in the City of Łódź located in the Łęczyca District of the Mazowieckie Voivodship", was drawn up in 1823 (on the basis of the map by the surveyor Plebanowski) by the surveyor Filip de Viebig, who acted on behalf and according to the instructions of Rajmund Rembieliński. In the same year, during the naming of new streets by Mayor Antoni Czarkowski, the name "Ulica Piotrkowska" appeared for the first time. At that time, Piotrkowska, as a city street, started from the north between the bridge over the Łódka River and Podrzeczna Street, and ended in the south at Cegielniana Street (today's Stefana Jaracza Street). It was crossed by the following streets: Północna, Średnia, Południowa and Cegielniana (the names of the streets on both sides of Piotrkowska were the same). The first pole with the name of the street was placed on what is now Nowomiejska Street between the bridge over the Łódka River and Podrzeczna Street.

On separate plots, standard houses-workshops were built for clothiers, which were located facing the street. The rest of the individual plots were "gardens" for the owner's family. The New Town Square performed administrative functions for the craftsmen's settlement. At that time, the entire route, including the Old Market Square and the New Market Square, was a road connecting the capital of the Piotrków Governorate, which was Piotrków Trybunalski, with Zgierz and Łęczyca.

In 1823, a decision was made to enlarge the area intended for handicraft workshops[8]. Therefore, in the years 1824–1828, south of Nowe Miasto (in municipal and government areas), another industrial settlement was established, intended primarily for settlement of linen and cotton weavers, which was called Łódka. The settlement was located along the Piotrków route and the Jasień river, and also included the government villages of Wólka, Zarzew and Widzew. First, a total of 230 plots along the Piotrków route and cross-streets were marked out. On the plan drawn up by the geometer Jan Leśniewski in 1825 (a copy from 1827), the Piotrkowska route was presented as "Piotrkowska Street". Along with the parcelling of the land along and to the west of Piotrkowska Street, serfs from the village of Wólka (area of Piotrkowska - Wólczańska - Czerwona Streets) were resettled along with their houses (28 "dymów" and about 260 inhabitants) to the government villages of Zarzew and Widzew.

During the regulation of Piotrkowska Street, the course of seven new crossroads was marked out in the new settlement. It was then that the streets were built, which, as in the New Town, had the same names on the eastern and western sides of Piotrkowska Street: Dzielna (today's Zielona - Narutowicza crossroads), Krótka (6 August - Traugutta), Przejazd (Andrzeja - Tuwima), Nawrot (Zamenhofa - Nawrot), Główna (Mickiewicz - Piłsudski), Empty (Żwirki - Wigury), Boczna (Radwańska - Brzeźna) and reaching Piotrkowska: Placowa (Skorupki), Przędzalniana (Tymienieckiego), Czerwona, Zarzewska (Przybyszewskiego), and also the Upper Market Square (currently Reymonta Square) and Bielnikowy Market, which was to serve as the center of the new settlement (currently it is a square located at the intersection of Piotrkowska and Tymienieckiego Streets, opposite the Łódź Cathedral).

After the arrangement of the new settlement was completed, Piotrkowska Street formally consisted of two parts: the older one (designated in 1821 in the Nowe Miasto area) and the newer one (in the Łódka settlement) starting south of the Upper Market Square (current Reymont Square) near the modern Independence Square at the border with the private villages of Rokita and Chojny, and ending in the north at Dzielna Street (today's Zielona - Narutowicza crossroads). The break between the Cegielniana crossroads in Nowe Miasto and the Dzielna crossroads in the Łódka settlement (currently the pairs of Jaracz - Więckowskiego and Zielona - Narutowicza crossroads, respectively) resulted from the fact that the two settlements (cloth in the north and weaving and spinning in the south) in this section did not connect - They were separated by about two hundred meters long, unregulated stretch of the route, which until 1840 was in the hands of a dozen or so private persons. In 1828, a government letter stated that "the main street, Piotrkowska, passes through the drapery settlement of Łódź and the linen and cotton settlement of Łódka".

New Town was settled by clothiers coming mainly from the Grand Duchy of Poznań and Lower Silesia, and in the settlement of Łódka linen and cotton weavers from Saxony, Bohemia, Lower Silesia and Prussia. The newcomers received a plot of land for "hereditary and rent" property as perpetual usufruct, financial aid for development, wood for building a house and exemption from taxes for 6 years. The plots allocated at Piotrkowska Street usually had an area of less than a morga to almost 2 morgens (i.e. from 0.5 to 1 ha according to the Nowopolska morga), and their width at the street ranged from 17 to 22 meters. In 1827, the eastern side of the street had 143 plots, and the western side - 153. Apart from the first houses built by weavers, government houses (12 wooden and 28 brick) were built at Piotrkowska Street (near the Jasień River near the bleachery shop at Tymienieckiego Street) with a view to renting them craftsmen. These houses were standardized and served as models according to which craftsmen should build their own. Despite the large amenities, the development of the plots progressed more slowly than expected - the craftsmen first erected small wooden buildings at the back of the plots, leaving the street fronts empty for future grander developments. In 1832, there were 228 plots of land undeveloped on Piotrkowska Street. In the years 1827–1828, at the New Town Square at the exit of Piotrkowska Street, two classicist buildings were built: the town hall (which was the seat of the municipal authorities in the years 1830–1915) and the Evangelical church (rebuilt at the end of the 19th century), which was erected at the request of the colonists (mainly German weavers). Education also developed. Due to the insufficient number of places in government schools, private elementary schools were opened. The first such school approved by the authorities was founded in 1839 by Mikołaj Olszewski at 178 Piotrkowska Street.

In 1829, it was designed at the request of the authorities of the Kingdom of Poland, the so-called a factory route connecting Łowicz (among others via Łódź) with Kalisz. The construction of the route on Piotrkowska Street was completed in 1834, and the culmination was the erection of four iron verst poles marking the distance to Warsaw. The pole marking 131 versts was erected at Cegielniana Street (Jaracza), and the last one (134 versts) at the bridge over the Jasień River. The route was covered with crushed stone (looting), and the maintenance of the surface was carried out by the Transport Lines Management in Warsaw. The route was 2,898 m long, but it did not include Nowe Miasto, where the street was paved (works were also completed in 1834) and remained under the management of the city. A year later, the street was planted with Italian poplars, the nurseries of which were located behind the plots at the New Town Square and behind property no. 184. Public gardens were another form of beautifying the street. The first of them was founded by Jan Adamowski (the owner of a wooden inn house with a tavern built in 1824 at Rynek Nowomiejski 16 - now Plac Wolności 9), who in 1827 first built a half-timbered outbuilding on three plots of land (at number 175a), then a bowling alley (1828) and a brick inn (1829), and at the back he arranged an English-style walking garden. He called the whole architectural complex "Paradis".

The first brick factory buildings (manufactories) at Piotrkowska Street were built in the late 1820s. In 1827, Jan Krystian Rundzieher, on one of the received plots (Piotrkowska 303), built a two-story house intended for a linen spinning mill. A year later, Jan Traugott Lange built two buildings at 287–301 Piotrkowska Street: a dyehouse and a printing house[16]. In 1828, Ludwik Geyer came to Lodz from Saxony, who first developed a three-room wooden house on property no. In 1833, he purchased property no. 282 (from the bankrupt printer Antoni Potempa), and seven years later he bought two properties at an auction from the government: 303–315 (after Rundzieher) and 287–301 (after Lange). In 1833, he built a classicist manor house at No. 286, and in 1843 a brick two-story house at the corner of Piotrkowska Street and Górny Rynek (also Piotrkowska property No. 286), called Geyer's Palace. Ludwik Geyer invested his profits by displaying e.g. a dyehouse, a washing plant and a printing house. Ludwik Geyer's largest investment was the construction of a three-story factory building at number 282 in 1835–1837, which housed a steam spinning mill and a mechanical weaving mill (the so-called "White Factory"). A year later, a brick pavilion and a building were added to the spinning mill, in which (at the end of 1838) the first steam engine in Łódź was installed, and the first factory chimney in Łódź appeared on the property. In the 1840s, it was the largest cotton factory in the Kingdom (now the Central Museum of Textiles is located within its walls). Another steam engine (along with a chimney of "excellent size") was placed in 1847 on Geyer's second factory complex on property 303–305. In 1853, at 268 Piotrkowska Street, the first steam mill was built by Leonard Fessler, a calico printer.

In the 1830s, the section of Piotrkowska Street in the New Town quickly lost its industrial character. Even before the November Uprising, there was a wide variety of professions in the settlement of clothiers. It was not uncommon for newcomers who declared themselves to be clothiers to change their profession to a more profitable one - they became shopkeepers, carpenters, bricklayers, ran a tavern or left the city after experiencing a failure in running workshops. After the November Uprising, which was a blow to the nascent cloth industry, the draper's workshop was virtually unheard of: the decline of the cloth industry was mainly related to the introduction of a new tariff limiting the export of textile products to the Russian market. On the other hand, in the Łódka settlement, the development of the textile industry along Piotrkowska Street was clearly visible - the plots covered only cotton weavers (only such an occupation was mentioned in the declaration protocols granting them perpetual and rent ownership), and in the years 1831–1849 a different occupation than directly related to textile production in the southern section street was rare. The producers of cotton products (cheap and practical) had their sale secured mainly in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, so the change in customs tariffs had no meaning for them. From 1831, the development of Łódź and Piotrkowska Street was associated with the cotton industry.

In the Łódka settlement, on the section from Cegielniana to Czerwona Streets, from the mid-1830s, in addition to weavers' workshops, dye-houses, printing houses and finishing shops began to be established - the first dyer was August Sanger, who established a workshop at 228 Piotrkowska Street. in one field, dye-houses and printing houses supplementing own production were also established. Most often, weavers had from one to four weaving workshops and worked on their own account or by outwork: material (yarn) was delivered to them and finished products were collected. Those who had a greater financial contribution created jobs and employed other weavers, e.g. the weaver Jan Heinzel, the father of the future manufacturer Juliusz Heinzel, set up workshops in a brick government house at 220 Piotrkowska Street, and lived in a two-room wooden house in the courtyard of this property. In 1837, the Assembly of Weavers, in which 560 foremen and 720 apprentices were registered, decided to erect a "house of foremen" at 100 Piotrkowska Street. The house, whose construction was supervised by Jakub Peters, was put into use two years later.

In 1850, the entire front of the street was built-up. All wooden buildings were one-story, and out of 85 brick buildings: 10 were single-story, 2 two-story factory buildings (Geyera and Vorwerk), and 1 three-story (Geyer's spinning mill). Wooden construction prevailed due to the building material, which was free for the weavers who settled there, and the buildings, erected according to standardized government plans with uniform architectural forms, were monotonous. The second reason for the predominance of wooden construction was the poverty of the weavers coming to Lodz, who, investing a large part of the funds in buildings, did not have the appropriate working capital to cover their business, which resulted in bankruptcies. Taking the above into account, Mayor Franciszek Traeger allowed non-compliance with the building instructions ordering the development of plots at the main streets and market squares with brick buildings. In 1850, the authorities allowed weavers to erect wooden buildings also at the intersections of Piotrkowska Street.

In addition to butcher shops and shops, in order to ensure economic needs, three markets were located at Piotrkowska Street, where markets and fairs were held. The first, the New Town Square, which is the central point of the city (with the town hall, the Evangelical church, the first pharmacy and the school), was founded in the years 1821-1823 as part of the creation of a cloth settlement. The second one, the Upper Market Square (now Plac Reymonta), was laid out in 1825 during the regulation of the settlement of Łódka. The third was the market square called Fabryczny (later John Paul II Cathedral Square, where the Łódź cathedral is located). Originally, Rembieliński kept this square for himself with the idea of erecting a residential house with a garden, but after the stables, coach house, servants' apartment and foundations of the house were built, he gave the square to Tytus Kopisch, who in turn (in the early 1840s) gave the square to the city . From 1842, fairs were held on this square. Despite the fact that Piotrkowska was the axis of the city and its longest street, where traffic and population grew rapidly, there were disproportionately few shops - in 1850, out of a total of 120 shops in Łódź, only 24 were located on Piotrkowska Street. Most often, these were general stores, where not only "spices" and other products necessary in the household were sold, but also dyeing materials, yarn or ready-made textiles, and the traders were often former weavers.

The years 1835-1865 were characterized by major changes in the ownership of houses - only 43 out of a total of 260 houses in perpetual and rent ownership did not change owners. Pursuant to the applicable regulations, the perpetual and rent usufruct lasted for 30 years (with the possibility of extension after paying an extraordinary fee - laudemium). Until the 20th year of use, a weaver could only transfer his property to another weaver (with the permission of the Provincial Commission), and after 20 years (with the consent of the city authorities and making changes in the rent register) also to a person of a different profession. The new owner took over all legal obligations and had to pay a laudemium equal to the annual rent to the Municipal Treasury. From 1870, as part of the permanent regulation of ownership rights, the Magistrate encouraged the abolition of the perpetual and rent lease in favor of full ownership of land. The purchase of municipal real estate, which was in the possession of private individuals for an indefinite period, was carried out on the basis of tsarist regulations issued in 1870, in which the purchase amount was set at twenty annual rents and laudemium. There was a lot of interest in buying out, because the existing lessees became the owners of plots in the city center (i.e. of high value) for a small price, because the annual rent had been unchanged since the 1820s, with the value of money declining over 40 years. For example, a one-morga plot (about half a hectare) with an annual rent of 1.5 rubles was taken over for less than 31 rubles (at that time, this amount was the value of seven bushels of rye, i.e. about 700 kg).

Since the regulation of Piotrkowska Street, Jews were deprived of the right to purchase property on the main street. In 1825, Jews were assigned a district in the Old Town (area of Podrzeczna, Wolborska and the southern frontage of the Old Market Square) as their place of residence. Permission to live outside the district - after meeting numerous requirements, the main criterion of which was wealth - was granted extremely rarely: in the 1830s, two Jews, wealthy merchants, lived on Piotrkowska Street: Ludwik Mamroth and Dawid Lande. Changes began to take place after 1848, when the tsar's ukase made it easier for the wealthy and at the same time assimilating Jews to live outside the district after submitting an application and considering it by the city authorities. The next ukase, from 1862, abolished any restrictions on the purchase of land and the choice of place of residence. Despite this, few Jews took advantage of the opportunity to change and moved to Piotrkowska Street - most of those leaving the district lived near the New Town Square, mainly on Nowomiejska Street.

From the mid-nineteenth century, the process of changing the character of the street began - from a factory to a commercial one: the city hall began to receive numerous applications for permission to change the facade of buildings by converting windows into shop doors and thus changing the use of premises on the ground floor. There were also hams next to the shops. The first building erected at the New Town Market Square (during the regulation of Piotrkowska Street and the Nowe Miasto drapery settlement in the years 1821–1823) was a tavern with an inn. The first one in the Łódka settlement was erected in 1827 at 45 Piotrkowska Street. In the 1840s, there were a total of 30 premises in the street, mostly owned by former weavers. Most of the taverns had bowling alleys and billiards (acting as places of entertainment, meetings and socializing), and some of the taverns were also taverns, where you could eat a hot meal in addition to drinking vodka or beer. Apart from taverns, Bavarians (which were located at the corners of Piotrkowska Streets) and restaurants were also established. The first restaurant at Piotrkowska Street (at number 11) was founded by Adolf Manteuffel in 1862[38]. Confectionery shops supplemented the gastronomic offer. The first information about them comes from 1843, when there was a confectionery at 5 Piotrkowska Street, and in 1848 at no. 13 and 160. However, these were not independent premises, because they functioned as part of run taverns. The first real confectionery was founded in 1853 by Fryderyk Sellin in a one-story brick house of Jan Lebelt (at Piotrkowska 47). In addition to the confectionery products sold there, the premises served as a café.

The development of the city located on the busy Piotrków route created a demand for accommodation for visitors. In 1853, at 3 Piotrkowska Street, on the site of a wooden one-story house with five rooms and a shop, the owner of the property, Antoni Engel, built a one-story brick inn, which, together with outbuildings, had 30 rooms for 60 guests. It was the most impressive inn in Łódź, considered the first hotel in Łódź - Hotel de Pologne. In 1853, there were 9 inns in Łódź, including 2 on Piotrkowska. Increased traffic and communication needs of an increasingly populous city as well as the expansion of its territory resulted in the introduction, following the example of Warsaw, of horse-drawn carriages. The first concession for the transport of people by four horse-drawn carriages was granted to Julian Czajkowski and in 1840, stops at no. 175 and 282 appeared on Piotrkowska Street (as well as on the Old and New Town squares).

In 1835, the street, as the first in the city, was illuminated with reverber oil lanterns, and in 1841 (at 124 Piotrkowska Street) a city (public) well was located - initially discovered with a crane, and from 1845 with a hand pump. From the mid-1830s, the street was paved with fieldstone. Initially, short sections were paved - in those places where the passage was difficult during the rain, and in those where there was increased traffic. The New Town Square was paved in the mid-1840s, and Górny and Fabryczny in 1860 were not paved. In 1842, the magistrate took care of maintaining order in sanitary terms, hiring a person to clean the pavements and remove garbage from the street twice a week. In 1860, the wooden bridges in front of the houses were removed and the side ditches draining water from the property were filled in, and paved gutters were laid in their place, which contributed to changing the appearance and increasing the prestige of the street.

From 1836, the city government raised funds to build the city's first hospital, which was essential to the growing city. The Fabryczny Market, located at Piotrkowska Street (modern Cathedral Square), was chosen as its location. The construction was managed by the Detailed Welfare Council. A one-story brick building with a tiled roof, designed by architect Henryk Marconi, was erected in 1842–1845 at the back of the square, facing Piotrkowska Street. The hospital was named after St. Aleksandra and functioned until 1921, when a new place was found for it at ul. Aleksandrowska, and the building was handed over for the establishment of the Higher Theological Seminary.

In the years 1848–1850, in connection with the estimation of buildings for tax purposes, the numbering of properties on Piotrkowska Street was put in order. Since the regulation of Łódka in the years 1823–1828, each of the three parts of the street (in the Old Town, Nowe Miasto and in the settlement of Łódka) had a separate numbering starting with 1. However, the historical division into settlements was kept. The confusing numbering system, when individual blocks of the street were given numbers with the addition of letters, was changed for the second time in 1891 (after being marked with separate numbering of properties on the blocks) and this system of property designation, with minor changes, has survived to modern times. In September 1863, the City Council approved the renaming of the section of the street from Rynek Nowe Miasto (currently Plac Wolności) to Zgierska Street, which was renamed Nowomiejska Street, and Piotrkowska Street was marked with new metal plates. In addition, the names of those parts of the cross-streets that ran west of Piotrkowska Street were changed. In 1887, as a result of progressing Russification, the signs were changed into bilingual ones.

On December 2, 1863, on the initiative of war chief Broemsen, the first issue of the first Łódź newspaper, Lodzer Zeitung, was published, published by Jan Petersilge - initially at 11 Piotrkowska Street, and from the mid-1970s at number 18. In 1864, a municipal a telegraph line (initially 1 verst long) as a fragment of the line leading to the railway station in Rokiciny. In the same year, a decision was made to replace the reverber (oil) lanterns with gas ones - new lighting (89 lanterns on Piotrkowska Street) was launched on July 13, 1869.

The construction of the Fabryczna-Łódź railway line (1865), which is a connection with the Warsaw-Vienna Railway, and the location of the Łódź Fabryczna headend "as close as possible to Piotrkowska Street" (which is a kind of inner courtyard and market for the great "Łódź manufactory"), resulted in the shift of the center of Łódź from the New Town Square to Piotrkowska Street, between Narutowicza and Nawrot Streets. In 1869, on the section from the New Town Square to ul. Dzielna (now Narutowicza Street), asphalt sidewalks were laid. When laying new sidewalks, old poplars were cut down and replaced with chestnut and acacia trees. In the years 1874–1876, the entire carriageway of the factory route (created in 1829 on the part of Piotrkowska from Narutowicza Street to Plac Niepodległości and owned by the government) was paved, and from 1890 the surface of the pavements was replaced with stone slabs, which turned out to be more practical than asphalt.

In 1860, the first banking institution in the city was opened at 286 Piotrkowska Street. It was a branch (exchange office and warehouses) of Bank Polski located in the factory owner's palace, which the bank bought for this purpose, along with part of the plot, from Ludwik Geyer for 480,000. Polish zlotys. The appearance of other financial institutions in Łódź, including Bank Handlowy in 1872 and the Credit Society of Łódź (also in 1872), which granted loans not only for future textile production, meant that after 1870 the authorities stopped distributing land and providing financial assistance. From the mid-1870s, a rapid development of housing construction began, which was particularly visible on the main street of the city, where multi-storey tenement houses began to be erected - Piotrkowska Street from a rural street with weavers' houses turned into a metropolitan street: in the mid-1870s In the 1980s, brick houses on Piotrkowska Street accounted for about 30% of all buildings, and 20 years later about 75%, although until the early 1980s, they were mostly two-story houses, most often with seven axes, with a centrally located gate and an iron balcony above it.

From the beginning of the 1890s, brick one- and two-story houses were added and wooden houses were demolished, replacing them mainly with tenement houses, but this was done without taking into account the urban coherence of the street (as the appearance of tenement houses was decided in practice only by the owners of the property) and with confusion factory buildings with residential and commercial buildings. From the front, Piotrkowska Street became an elite street, where you could rent multi-room apartments with all amenities. In 1876, at number 67, a two-story "Victoria" hotel was built, and a year later, a brick, one-story Kerna Theater was erected in the courtyard of the property, renamed in 1882 to the "Victoria" theater, which after World War II was transformed into the "Polonia" cinema. In 1887, the two-story building of Ludwik Meyer's wool products factory was converted into a "guest house" under the name of the Grand Hotel. A sign of changes was also the decision of the municipal authorities in 1883 to build a tram line on Piotrkowska Street, first a horse-drawn one (the line was never built), and then an electric one (1893). Therefore, the authorities applied to the government to hand over the factory road to the supervision of the city, which took place in 1887. The transfer of this section of the street made it easier for the Magistrate to carry out various investments. Architects and city builders who contributed to the appearance of Piotrkowska Street were, among others, Jan Feliks Bojanowski (1864–1870), Jan Karol Mertsching (1870–1872), Hilary Majewski (1872–1892) and Ignacy Markiewicz. The street, especially in the section from Narutowicz to Nawrot, became the main walking street of Łódź at the end of the 19th century. The fronts of Piotrkowska Street, once lined with weavers' houses, were filled with tenement houses with shops also offering luxury goods and services. Warsaw companies opened their branches. The first, impressive, big-city shop windows appeared on Piotrkowska Street around 1885. The importance of fair markets and the range of goods diminished - mainly groceries were traded. At the end of the 19th century, on Piotrkowska Street, in the front houses and outbuildings, there were 298 shops and warehouses offering articles of the textile industry.

 

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, apart from textile shops (298), there were e.g. butcher shops (34), haberdashery and tailor shops (19), jewelery shops (10), warehouses with colonial goods (11), delicatessens (9), as well as confectioneries (7) and bookshops and antique shops (8).

In 1883, the International Telephone Society "Bella" began installing the telephone network and connecting the first recipients. In 1897, the Magistrate signed an agreement with a group of Łódź manufacturers for the construction and operation of four tram lines[83], and on December 23, 1898, the first electric tram run on Piotrkowska Street took place. On the occasion of the construction of tram tracks, the St. Petersburg Society for Improved Roadways laid, on the section from Nowy Rynek to Główna Street, a pine road surface and gutters made of field stone. In 1911, electric street lighting was launched on the section from Plac Wolności to Aleja Mickiewicza, and in 1927 the entire street was illuminated with electric lanterns. In 1899, the opening took place by Władysław and Antoni Krzemiński - at ul. Piotrkowska 120 - the first permanent cinema in Poland, called the "Theater of Living Photographs" (the projection apparatus of the Lumiére brothers system was used).

In the years 1901-1912, the largest neo-Gothic Catholic church in Łódź was built - at ul. Piotrkowska 273, designed by architect Zillmann. In 1920, the church was raised to the dignity of a cathedral, and in 1992 it was recognized as an arch-cathedral. In 1909, the construction of the neo-Romanesque Lutheran church of St. st. Mateusz at ul. Piotrkowska 283[92]. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the process of raising the height of the front tenement houses intensified, although the development was not uniform. From Nowy Rynek to Nawrot Street, the buildings were mostly multi-storey houses (there were several wooden, one-story houses), and there were over 30 wooden streets in the southern section. In the section behind the houses, undeveloped land often stretched from half of the property. With the growing demand for apartments in tenement houses, house prices were rising, and high rents ensured a large profit on investments in their construction. The price of a square cubit of land cost as much as a morga at the beginning of industrial Łódź. Many manufacturers took advantage of the economic situation by moving their factories to the outskirts of the city so that they could sell plots of land at Piotrkowska Street for rental housing or convert factory buildings into residential buildings (such was the case with Ludwik Meyer when building the Grand Hotel). At the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, Poles owned only a dozen properties at Piotrkowska, the rest of the owners were Germans (50% of houses) and Jews (42%).

During World War II, on April 11, 1940, by order of Adolf Hitler, the city was named Litzmannstadt, and ul. Piotrkowska Adolf Hitler Straße.

In 1960, the Museum of the History of Textiles (now the Central Museum of Textiles) was established in the historic building of Ludwik Geyer's White Factory at 282/284 Piotrkowska Street. In the years 1992–1997, the northern section of the street was rebuilt into a pedestrian zone in four implementation sections based on a design by Włodzimierz Nowakowski. On June 4, 2000, the statue of John Paul II by Krystyna Fałdyga-Solska was unveiled. On August 1, 2002, it was opened at ul. Piotrkowska Monument to the Citizens of the Breakthrough of the Millennium - i.e. the named surface covering a fragment of the main street of the city (from ul. Tuwima to Nawrot). On May 16, 2008, a vertical obelisk was erected to commemorate the 185th anniversary of the renaming of the old Piotrkowska route into Piotrkowska Street. Each rod (of the obelisk) with a thickness of 1 cm symbolizes one year from this event[97] (the originator was Marek Janiak, then president of the Piotrkowska Street Foundation).

In 2015, Piotrkowska Street was declared a monument of history.

 

Renovation of Piotrkowska in the years 1990–1998

Before 1990 st. Piotrkowska, despite the fact that it was the most important street in the city, did not stand out from other streets with its decor. Plans to turn it into a promenade after World War II ended only with the transfer of trams to the parallel Promenada (now Kościuszko Avenue).

Before this change, the promenade played the role of a walking boulevard. Its middle was a wide strip of greenery, which was intended for a tram route. The political will was not enough to actually replace Piotrkowska Street with a promenade, although the idea resurfaced from time to time. The introduction to this was the gradual reduction of traffic on the street by introducing a parking ban and placing turn signs at almost all intersections on the section from al. Mickiewicz to Plac Wolności.

In the years 1945–1990, the street was progressively degraded. Until the mid-1970s, the old, eclectic tenement houses were not considered monuments by the then authorities. A dozen of them have been demolished for the construction of office buildings and department stores, usually built in an international style. Even in the 1980s, decorative elements of the façades of deteriorating tenement houses, threatening passers-by, were often simply removed from the walls, although the renovation of several selected objects had already begun at that time.

The character of the street changed only after 1990, when, on the initiative of architect Marek Janiak, a member of the Łódź Kaliska artistic group, the Piotrkowska Street Foundation was established, whose goal was to modernize this street and implement the idea of ​​a promenade. As the first, in 1992, the section from Al. Piłsudski to ul. Tuwim. It was lined with colorful cubes and equipped with modernist lanterns and other elements of small architecture. It was strongly criticized by conservators and cultural historians as incompatible with the general atmosphere of this street.

Subsequent parts of the street to the north, up to Plac Wolności, were rebuilt and closed to traffic in the years 1993–1997. They were lined with gray cubes or cubes imitating old cobblestones and provided with more and more beautiful, stylish elements of small architecture. Each successive episode, however, had a different surface and a different style of additions, which was also criticized. Even before the last section intended for the promenade was handed over, the cobblestone on the first section was severely damaged. From 1995, it was gradually replaced with a grayer and more solid cube, in which the Monument to the Citizens of Łódź of the Millennium Breakthrough was built.

Along with the change in the design of the street, the tenement houses and palaces standing along it were also renovated, into which pubs, restaurants, shops and cafes moved in. Initially, mainly the facades of the tenement houses were renovated, but with the increase in popularity of the street and the occupancy of most of the most attractive front premises, the revitalization gradually began to extend to the backyards and outbuildings. Currently, although not all, a significant percentage of courtyards are also paved and used for trade and gastronomy.

 

Renovation of Piotrkowska in 2012–2014

In 2012, it was decided to renovate Piotrkowska Street on the section from Wolności Square to the intersection with Piłsudskiego and Mickiewicza Avenues, as the concrete cubes were in increasingly poor condition. The renovation was divided into stages, the aim was to make the surface uniform over the entire section - concrete blocks were replaced with granite slabs, lampposts were replaced, and the roadway was narrowed. The biggest change, however, is urban furniture - benches, racks and baskets have appeared, all anthracite. The renovation was completed in July 2014.

 

Currently

Today, Piotrkowska is the axis of the Łódź agglomeration. It is here or nearby that almost all the most important public administration offices, bank headquarters, shops, restaurants and plenty of pubs are located. It is here that most of the Łódź events, festivities, marches and state ceremonies take place.

The part of Piotrkowska Street (the promenade) closed to traffic was called by the residents of Łódź "bigle"[99]. Now (the entire) street is much more often referred to as "Pietryna". It is the cultural, political, sentimental, commercial and business center of Łódź.

After the Galeria Łódzka shopping center was built near the southern end of the pedestrianized part of Piotrkowska Street, many shops moved out of this street, which resulted in its clear regression. After about a year, the premises of the abandoned stores began to gradually fill up again, although some, at the beginning of 2006, were still empty. A similar process was observed after the opening of another shopping center near the northern end of the street - Centrum Manufaktury.

Between ul. Tuwima and Nawrot there is the Monument to the Citizens of Łódź of the Millennium Breakthrough, i.e. the named surface covering a fragment of ul. Piotrkowska; it is probably the only monument of its kind in the world, currently containing 13,454 named cubes.

Since June 1, 2009, on Piotrkowska Street, there have been street spas, i.e. a series of small architecture objects, created thanks to the initiative of the Water and Sewage Plant in Łódź as part of the "Fountains for Łódź" project. Springs, in the form of granite columns with sculptures of children and fish, provide drinking water to passers-by. Their creators are Lodz sculptors: Magdalena Walczak and Marcin Mielczarek, whose author is also the Monument of Teddy-eared Bear, located at 87 Piotrkowska Street.

The bugle call of Łódź is played every day at 12:00 from the window of the City Hall of Łódź at ul. Piotrkowska 106 (until September 8, 2011 from the balcony of building no. 104, the Juliusz Heinzl Palace). The piece is performed first towards Plac Wolności, and then in the opposite direction – to Plac Niepodległości.

 

Traffic

From Plac Niepodległości to the intersection with Aleja Mickiewicza and Aleja Piłsudskiego, normal traffic is in force. This part of the street is paved with asphalt and concrete slab pavements. In the section from Plac Niepodległości to the intersection with Żwirki and Wigury streets, there is an intensive traffic of trams and buses. Nevertheless, there are also many shops, restaurants and pubs on this section of the street.

From Aleja Piłsudskiego to Plac Wolności (with the exception of sections Moniuszko-Traugutt and Roosevelta-Piłsudskiego) the street is closed to normal traffic. The right of entry is granted to persons with appropriate ZDiT identifiers (residents, people running shops and pubs, security vehicles, taxis and many notables) and suppliers. The speed limit is 20 km/h here 24/7. Turn signs are posted at every intersection.

Piotrkowska is not formally a promenade. This situation changes only during mass events, when the street is closed to traffic, e.g. during "Dni Łodzi". Piotrkowska is not marked as a pedestrian zone, but it is a street with limited car traffic. Due to the length of this section and the lack of typical public road transport along it, its role was largely taken over by rickshaws. Rickshaws on Piotrkowska Street were inaugurated in 1999 by an enthusiast of these vehicles. In the same year, several rickshaws appeared on the initiative of the Piotrkowska Street Foundation.

Since 2001 at ul. More and more rickshaws began to appear on Piotrkowska Street. Their number reached its apogee in 2007–2010, when tourists and residents of Łódź could use almost 300 rickshaws. Since 2010, the number of rickshaws has been steadily decreasing, and due to the renovation of Piotrkowska Street in 2012–2014, only one company dealing with professional production and rental of rickshaws remained on Piotrkowska Street. In 2019, identifiers were introduced that allow rickshaws to move around Piotrkowska Street and at the same time are a certificate that the rickshaws meet the technical and aesthetic parameters of the Cultural Park, which is ul. Piotrkowska. Łódź is one of the few cities in Europe where rickshaw transport has become a permanent fixture and fulfills practical transport functions, and is not only a tourist attraction. Rickshaws run along Piotrkowska all year round. Most rickshaws are equipped with canopies and wind shields, which enables their operation also in difficult weather conditions. The rickshaws that drive along ul. Piotrkowska, are produced by the Łódź company "AT Instytut", rickshaws of the same production run, among others, in Munich, Berlin, London and the United Arab Emirates.

In 2003, as an alternative to rickshaws, the so-called trambus - a slow bus, not exceeding the speed of 20 km/h, which is a dummy of the historic Herbrand tram "on rubber wheels". However, due to the renovation of the street, the trambus service on Piotrkowska Street was suspended, and after the work was completed, it was not restored.

In spring and autumn, part of the road is occupied by gardens run by restaurants, cafes and pubs. Their greatest density occurs in the section from Roosevelta Street to Jaracza Street. This part of Piotrkowska Street plays the same role as in other cities it is performed by the old town squares.

 

Gallery of Great Lodz Citizens

Since 1999, ul. Piotrkowska is decorated with outdoor bronze sculptures standing on its pavements, commemorating famous people associated with Łódź, who form the so-called The Gallery of Great Lodz Citizens.

 

Avenue of Stars

On ul. Piotrkowska between ul. 6 August and the Rubinstein Passage is the Avenue of Stars. The originator of the avenue, following the Hollywood model, in 1996 was Jan Machulski. The first brass star - for actor Andrzej Seweryn - was built in two years later. On the even (eastern) side there are stars of the directors, on the odd side there are bas-reliefs of the actors.

 

Major objects and places

No. 1 – Town Hall (side wing)
No. 2 – the church of the Holy Spirit
No. 3 – Antoni Engel's tenement house and Pasaż Róża
No. 4 – a large-city tenement house
No. 5 – Abraham Prussak's tenement house
No. 6 – tenement house of Karol Hielle and Karol Dittrich
No. 11 – the Scheibler tenement house
No. 12 – Dawid Sendrowicz's tenement house
No. 13 – Jan Peter's tenement house
No. 17 – Chaim Bławat's tenement house
No. 19 – Abram Lubiński's tenement house
No. 22 – Bechtold tenement house
No. 29 – Wilhelm Landau's banking house
No. 31 – Tenement house of Sender Dyszkin
No. 32 - Department Store "Magda"
No. 37 – Dawid Szmulewicz's tenement house
No. 39 – Józef Czapiewski's tenement house
No. 43 – Oszer Kohn's tenement house
No. 44 – Rafał Sachs' tenement house
No. 46 – Józef Rosenthal's tenement house
No. 47 – Fischer tenement house
No. 48 – the tenement house of the R. Kindler Joint Stock Society
No. 49 – Dawid Prussak's tenement house
No. 51 - tenement house of I.K. Poznanski
No. 53 – Herman Konstadt's tenement house
No. 54 – Franciszek Fischer's tenement house
No. 63 – Kretschmer's tenement house
No. 67 - Polonia cinema
No. 70 – Szeps family tenement house
No. 72 - Hotel Grand
No. 74 – House of the Ludwik Geyer Joint Stock Society
No. 77 – Maximilian Goldfeder's Palace – Banking House
No. 85 – Edward Kindermann's tenement house
No. 86 - "Gutenberg House" by Jan Petersilge (elements of neo-gothic, neo-renaissance, neo-baroque)
No. 87 – Alojzy Balle's tenement house
No. 90 – Teodor Steigert's tenement house
No. 95 - "Saspol" Shopping Center
No. 96 – Siemens office building
No. 98 – Emil Schmechel's Garment Magazine
No. 99 – Szaja Goldblum's tenement house
No. 100a - "The Esplanade"
No. 101 – Jakub Hofman's tenement house
No. 104 – Juliusz Heinzel's Palace (neo-Renaissance) – City Hall of Łódź
No. 106 – the Monitz tenement house
No. 107 – Salomon Baharier's tenement house
No. 108 - Palace cinema. In the years 1930–1932, the Office of the Watchtower Society in Poland.
Leon Schiller Avenue
No. 113 – Albert Bohme's tenement house
No. 114 – Warszawski's tenement house
No. 114/116 - market hall
No. 118 – Juliusz Szulc's tenement house
no. 120 – tenement house; in 1899, the Krzeminski brothers opened the first permanent cinema in Poland - Cabinet of Illusions. Currently, the seat of the Stare Kino Cinema Residence hotel and the "Stare Kino" analog cinema
No. 127 - residential and service building "Bolek"
No. 128 – the Schychta tenement house
No. 135 – Karol Eisert's tenement house
No. 137/139 – Juliusz Kindermann's palace
No. 138/140 – Franciszek Ramisch's factory, now Off Piotrkowska
No. 143 - the house of the company "Krusche - Ender"
No. 146 - the house of the A&A Jewelery House
No. 147 – the Schweikert tenement house
No. 151 – Gustaw Adolf Kindermann's palace
No. 153 – Florian Jarisch's tenement house
No. 164 - Tenement House Monument
No. 166/168 - Orange Plaza
No. 179 – Ewald Kern's palace
No. 181 – Leopold Krusche's tenement house
No. 203/205 – tenement house of the Tomaszów Artificial Silk Factory (Charlie Cinema)
No. 213 – a large-city tenement house
No. 215 – Gelich's tenement house
No. 219 – a large-city tenement house
No. 225 – the Schmidt tenement house
No. 234/236 – August Haertig's palace
No. 242/250 – Markus Silberstein's factory
No. 243 – Gottlieb Beer's tenement house (the oldest two-story brick house in Łódź) and the former building of the concert hall of the Łódź Men's Singing Society
No. 252/254 – Karl König's tenement house
No. 256 – one of the oldest gas stations in Łódź, formerly a one-story house stood in this place. In 1872 Cezary Richter opened the first Polish bookstore in Łódź
No. 258/260 – tenement house of Henryk Birnbaum, the so-called the Solidarity tenement house, the seat of the German consulate in the interwar period
No. 262/264 – Robert Schweikert's Palace (eclecticism) – European Institute
No. 265 - Cathedral of St. Stanisław Kostka
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
No. 266/268 – Scheibler family palace complex (neo-baroque)
No. 272 – Adolf Steinert's Palace
No. 272a/272b – the palace of the brothers Karol and Emil Steinert (neo-baroque)
No. 275 – House of the "Betania" Association (neo-baroque). In the yard there was a chapel of the Free Reformed Church
No. 278 – tenement house from the 19th century. Gustaw Geyer's lace factory was located there from 1888, and in the front rooms - a tavern.
No. 279/285 – Evangelical-Augsburg Church st. Matthew
No. 280 – Ludwik Geyer's Playhouse. Place of rehearsals of the first orchestras and choirs supported by Ludwik Geyer. There were, among others, theater groups of F. Pietrzykowski (1846) or W. Raszewski (1848)
No. 280a – the building of the former power plant in the Ludwik Geyer factory complex
No. 282 - Ludwik Geyer's White Factory (classicism) - Central Museum of Textiles
Reymont park
No. 286 – Ludwik Geyer's manor house
No. 286 – Ludwik Geyer's palace
Władysław Reymont square
No. 288 – an office building erected in the 1990s. Until the mid-nineteenth century, small residential houses with shops on the ground floors.
No. 290 – a tenement house from 1896, erected for Samuel Zerbe.
No. 292 – tenement house of Jan Starowicz Pod Góralem
No. 294 – a tenement house from the end of the 19th century, owned by the Winers. In the past, there was a department store Bracia Płockier i Spółka.
No. 297/303 – buildings from the years 1882–1903, erected for Ludwik Geyer's Joint-Stock Society of Cotton Manufactories (housed: apparatus, dye house, warehouses, weaving mill and spinning mill).
No. 305 – industrial building, built by Ludwik Geyer after 1853. This is where Jan Rundzieher's factory was located, with a starch factory, a dye house and a bleach factory. Some of the buildings, today marked with numbers 297/303 and 305, were ruined in November 2008 by a private investor without the intervention of the city authorities to protect the monument. The remaining factory buildings were included in the so-called The Red Book of the Fabrykancka Association and the Group of Certain People.
No. 307 – the house of Karol Oberman (his son Gustaw ran a sausage shop here), in 1909 Franciszek Winnicki opened a pharmacy here.
No. 309 - after 1905, the building was the seat of the Society for the Promotion of Education, later a book lending office was located here.
No. 311/313 – post office building, built in 1961. Earlier, from 1936, there were tennis courts of the L. Geyer Sports Club here.
No. 315 – a residential building from the beginning of the 20th century
No. 317 – Hala Targowa Górniak

 

Synagogues and private prayer houses

There has never been a synagogue at Piotrkowska Street (there was only one department store, which for a short time served as a synagogue, which is why many people mistake it for a synagogue). Many Jews, however, also made their apartments available for prayer purposes as private prayer houses.