Muranów

Coordinates: 52°15′05″N 20°59′40″E / 52.2514°N 20.9945°E / 52.2514; 20.9945
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Muranów
Museum of History of Polish Jews
Location of Muranów neighbourhood (red) in the District of Śródmieście, Warsaw (navy blue)
Location of Muranów neighbourhood (red) in the District of Śródmieście, Warsaw
(navy blue)

Muranów (

Śródmieście (Downtown) and Wola in central Warsaw, the capital of Poland. It was founded in the 17th century. The name is derived from the palace belonging to Simone Giuseppe Belotti, a Venetian architect, who originally came to Warsaw from the island of Murano.[1]
It is the northernmost neighbourhood of the downtown area.

Muranów was once Warsaw's most multicultural, densely-populated and diverse precinct with historical architecture, bazaars, churches and synagogues. In the

tower blocks
and, more recently, modern buildings and skyscrapers.

History

1700–1900

One of the few remaining landmarks of historical Muranów, a gate into the Krasiński Palace gardens from what was then Nalewki Street.

In 1686, Simone Giuseppe Belotti, an

Michael I and John III Sobieski, erected a small palace in what was then the countryside in the north of Warsaw. Belotti decided to name the estate Murano, after his native island near Venice
.

In the subsequent decades, several independent settlements called jurydyka appeared in the vicinity of Belotti's residence. These self-governing exclaves attracted foreign settlers, initially Germans, and with time grew into small trading towns around Warsaw. The two most notable of these towns were Leszno and Nowolipie, now prominent streets in the Muranów neighbourhood. The houses were located on narrow lots along dirt roads aligned perpendicularly towards the Vistula. Contemporary urban layout of the area as well as several street names are the sole remainders of these towns.

Nalewki Street, once the main thoroughfare of the district, pictured before the war

Throughout the 19th century,

Wild West
" in the United States.

1900–1939

Burnt out buildings on Długa Street in 1939 after the invasion. Pasaż Simonsa is to the left.

Despite large disparities and an unfavourable reputation, the main representative streets of Muranów were aligned with richly decorated townhouses and

tenements, mostly occupied by the wealthiest and most respected residents. There were several palaces scattered around and some remnants of the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth which ceased to exist in 1795. "Plac Muranowski" (Muranów Square) was the commercial heart of the district, which was operated by an extensive tram
network dating back as early as the invention of the electric tramcar. Horse trams running on rails were present before the inauguration of the electric line in 1908. The tram depot was built on the former site of Belotti's Murano Palace, which was demolished at the end of the 1800s to make way for future development. A modern commercial and shopping hall called "Pasaż Simonsa" was completed in 1903 on the intersection of Długa and Nalewki streets.

In the interwar period (1918–1939), around 90% of the population in Muranów was Jewish or of Jewish descent. Some of the major streets then included Stawki, Nowolipki, Żelazna, Miła, Dzielna, Długa, Pawia, Gęsia, Twarda and Chłodna. The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street was adjacent and de facto part of historical Muranów.

World War II

tower blocks
in 1960s Muranów.
Post-war socreal-classicist architecture on Andersa Street.

During the

Majdanek. In April of 1943, the Jews rebelled against the Germans in what became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The Uprising was crushed and the Germans subsequently razed the ghetto to the ground, including Muranów. None of Muranów's most recognizable landmarks and architectural wonders remained standing with the exception of St. Augustine's Church, which was used as a watchtower, and the Jewish Cemetery. The intact ruins of the 18th-century Royal Artillery Barracks were demolished in 1965. Only a few of pre-war buildings were reconstructed, like the Mostowski and Krasiński
Palaces.

1945–contemporary

Intraco I skyscraper

Contemporary Muranów is a unique district, not only from the Polish perspective, since it is the only housing estate in the world located — intentionally — on the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto and built in most part from this reconditioned rubble. It is the only urban design of such a scale in the capital of Poland from the 1950s, whose architects, inspired mostly by the pre-war modernism, also incorporated many features of socialist realism and classical architecture based on doctrine enforced by the communist government. Since 1989, the neighbourhood has undergone a significant transformation and modernization. Many zones in the suburb were cleared for new housing estates and skyscrapers.

In April 2013, the

Museum of History of Polish Jews
was opened at 6 Anielewicza Street.

See also

References

52°15′05″N 20°59′40″E / 52.2514°N 20.9945°E / 52.2514; 20.9945