Despite all the efforts to modernize Galician life, exerted by the Austrian authorities, new forms of cultural or economic behavior constantly encountered significant resistance on the part of its traditional, "old" types. To make an irreversible breakthrough in this direction, both the imperial administration and local adherents of modern capitalism lacked resources. So modern and traditional practices became intricately intertwined on Lviv's soil, forming hybrid phenomena, where neither new nor old could prevail. Speaking of the nineteenth-century Lviv, one cannot ignore the peculiar "Lviv-style capitalism," whose underdevelopment was made up for by local identity. The Zhovkivske suburb, located to the north of the central part of the city, was an important testing area for the implementation of capitalism in Lviv and for the elaboration of specific local practices.

     The emergence of the modern Pidzamche district can be dated to the mid-nineteenth century. It was no coincidence that factors, which led to the emergence of another particular territory in the city, came together in one place. The example of Pidzamche can be regarded as a model of specific cultural and economic processes typical of Austrian Lviv. The history of Pidzamche is inextricably linked to the particular history of the nineteenth century modernization of Lviv and reflects its key points. The contradiction, ambiguity, and vagueness of the district is a direct consequence of the ambiguous, contradictory, and blurred process of modernization and urbanization in this region. From the very beginning, Pidzamche combined purely modern and purely traditional features. Neither of them ever became decisive.

      The same is true for the features of the city in its "Habsburg" period. Pidzamche is the product of the so-called "pursuing," half-way modernization which overtook Lviv as the capital of a marginal province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The urbanization of this Lviv suburb proves that the main objective of Austrian Lviv, that is, "to catch up with the center" and "to become a full-fledged metropolis," was not impracticable and utopian. It required a lot of time and effort to adapt the adopted practices to local conditions, but gradually Lviv began to cope with these challenges. However, the question of the ultimate success of the modernization project in "Habsburg" Lviv will always remain open. The First World War severely disrupted the development of the city in general and of Pidzamche in particular.

      The modern space of nineteenth-century Pidzamche was formed at the intersection of different strategies used by the city in respect to its suburbs. On the one hand, these strategies were determined by the traditionally indifferent and somewhat hostile attitude towards Pidzamche and its inhabitants and, on the other hand, by the awareness of the potential importance of the industrial district for the entire city. Lviv officials and technical elites repeatedly developed specific projects to be implemented in Pidzamche (from a project of a railway between Lviv and Brody to a plan for a new city center at Habrielivka/Gabrielówka), with the aim of the full realization of the district's modern potential, which would finally turn it into an important engine for the modernization of the entire city. Most of these ideas remained on paper, but there were cases of more or less successful implementation of some of them into practice. Private business activity was a critically important factor. The construction of factories meant a slow but radical change of the material environment and social and everyday practices, and therefore a change of the sense of local identity as well.

     Among the main features of the "modern" social space of Pidzamche during the gradual inclusion of Lviv in the advanced European socio-cultural and capitalist context (nineteenth century — early twentieth century), the following ones can be mentioned:— the main "oases of the new" were numerous industrial facilities, which changed the traditional appearance of the district, introduced new, purely capitalist, production practices and relationships and determined daily life;

— modernization initiatives of the authorities were "half-hearted" and insufficient;
— an important point in the process of Pidzamche's modernization was a step-by-step and, unfortunately, very minimal "modernization" of how it was treated by the Lviv elite: from the idea of ​​Pidzamche as a neglected, hopelessly "backward and downtrodden" neighbourhood to the idea of it as an important space which should be worked with for the further development of the entire city;
— the construction of a railway line through Pidzamche was very important and not only accelerated the arrival of new industry here, but also became an important factor;
— there were some significant objects changing the internal symbolic space;
— the perception of Pidzamche as a modern space, where one can realize not only industrial, but also cultural or social modern practices, was typical mainly of "internal" agents, i.e. local (Jewish) industrialists and workers;
— many modernization projects, both external (generated by the authorities and technical elites) and internal, failed because of geopolitical upheavals which had more impact on East Central Europe than on West Europe.

     More detailed history of the formation of Pidzamche's modern social space can be found in other texts of this section presented according to the main stages of Lviv's social and political life in the nineteenth century and is specific research micro focuses.

Early Capitalism

After the annexation of Galicia to the Habsburg Empire the Austrian administration launched its own project of the urban modernization of Lviv. New streets were laid and put in order, theaters and swimming pools were built, designed to provide newly arrived officials with "metropolitan" entertainments. New social practices for the nobility, such as balls and charity, were introduced. However, during the first half of the nineteenth century official innovations could be seen mainly in the central part of the city. The Austrians developed Lviv primarily as a center of government and administration. In the suburbs, they were interested only in places for military warehouses, barracks, and prisons, refurbishing former monasteries and convents with this in view. During the first half of the nineteenth century the city lacked resources and ideas both for broad adoption of truly progressive practices of that time and for modern infrastructure. Thus, the development of the northern suburb, which was called Zhovkivske in Austrian Lviv, depended only on the capabilities and enthusiasm of the local population or casual investors.

      As of the early nineteenth century, the early modern local space of Pidzamche was more progressive in economic terms when compared with what is now the central part of Lviv, but more backward when considered in the context of West and Central Europe. By that time, Pidzamche could no longer boast of modern European trends. Perhaps the only exception was the production of alcohol. Ignacy Chodynicki, a Lviv nineteenth-century historian, claimed that in 1812 there were four large factories of liqueurs and vodkas in Lviv; however, in his opinion, only two of them had the right to be called factories, including the world famous Baczewski factory (Chodynicki, 1829, 463 ). Also, many breweries functioned, in particular in Pidzamche, one of them is mentioned by Stanisław Schnür-Pepłowski, a contemporary historian: this is a brewery built by Jan Karpf, a German entrepreneur, in 1792 on the place of the demolished Armenian church of St. Anne (Schnür-Pepłowski, 1896, 174). On the Misjonarzów (Missionaries) square (the area of the intersection of prosp. Chornovola and vul. Pid Dubom) the city mead distillery functioned.

     Though the Austrians limited the influence of the nobility on the city affairs and cancelled the guild restrictions for craftsmen (Дудяк, 2013, 522), in Galicia it was agriculture that they placed their hope in and not industry (Saryusz-Zaleski, 1930, 11). However, in order to add weight to the "German element" in the province, the central government encouraged Austrian entrepreneurs to move there.

     The influx of German officials, merchants, and entrepreneurs contributed in the development of commercial, industrial, and public life. German entrepreneurs, however, were not necessarily eager to build factories or plants. A lot of foreign investments in Zhovkivske suburb were made in agriculture, so in the early nineteenth century there were large farms and vegetable gardens there. We know of the existence of several farms owned by Germans named Schneider and Heisler in the vicinity of what is now vul. Donetska, where the Schneider family house, built in the late nineteenth century, has survived till our days under the number 11. S. Schnür-Pepłowski mentioned also vegetable farms owned by German entrepreneurs on vul. Zamarstynivska (Schnür-Pepłowski, 1896, 182). He also observed that German gardeners in Lviv had no real competition in the first decades of the nineteenth century.

     By 1850 only nine factories were built in Lviv (Історія Львова, 1956, 57). Therefore, the local industry was supported mainly by large craftmen's workshops and partially by mechanized manufactories (a transitional form of production between the workshop and the factory), which numbered over forty at that time (Кісь, 1968, 162). Thus, vul. Tkatska (Weaver's Street), as evidenced by its name, housed several shops of weavers who continued to produce fabrics manually.

     The only important event of the contemporary economic life were the "Lviv Contracts," an annual fair of regional significance. Agreements concluded there concerned mainly selling big quantities of vegetables to the more developed industrial centers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The general economic stagnation in Lviv is evidenced by the fact that many officials subleased their homes to the "Lviv Contracts" guest participants. For them, this was almost the only way to cope with the rent during the year. Similarly, it was the successful sale of goods during the "Contracts" that the material well-being of the manufacturers of furniture, clothing, or carriages in the following year depended on (Schnür-Pepłowski, 1896, 49).

     While the Lviv craftsmen elite did not notice the new realities and tried to bring back the success of the old economic schemes, it was the Jewish community, also focused on "business affairs" but not fettered with the burden of traditions, that became the main engine of capitalism in Lviv. Jewish entrepreneurs were used to invest in retail trade of day-to-day goods though it was not too presentable (thus deserving contempt from those aiming to buy "luxury" expensive items). This was consistent with the economic niche, which the Jews were driven into by the representatives of Christian nobility in previous centuries. However, in the conditions of the initial accumulation of capital in Lviv, this strategy proved to be rather productive. This allowed Jewish traders to gradually develop, by way of evolution, capitalist practices on the local ground, without waiting for the introduction of adopted patterns "from above and from the outside." For a long time, Lviv Christian traders took the tactics of their Jewish counterparts contemptuously, despite the fact that the latter reproduced the general logic of the initial development of capitalism in West Europe more adequately. The Jewish approach to commerce was described in 1877 as follows: "The Jews, with their usual skill, (...) fill the city with more and more worse and cheaper goods. They have instilled a well-known slogan of the German business, "Bad but cheap!", in the local trading ground and gain quite a lot on this. Fine shops owned by Christians merchants are increasingly empty. Our merchants have almost completely left the market at the Krakivska gate, while Jewish trading pioneers are more and more present at the Halytsky market, on the Kapitulna and Mariacka squares, on ul. Karola Ludwika; there are some areas of trade, which are dominated almost exclusively by the Jews, and there are more and more stores where Christian merchants sell Jewish goods" (Merunowicz, 1877, 78).

     There were attempts to fight with the effective but unworthy "Jewish basic capitalism," concentrated on the commercial space of the Krakidały. The Wool Fair was opened in 1837, conceived as a way to leave out Jewish dealers who bought wool at low prices directly from small producers, visiting their yards. The city invested three thousand zlotys in this fair, and the participants were exempt from fees in the hope of significant future benefits. However, the fair failed to change the already established patterns, and in 1855 it was moved to Brody (Schnür-Pepłowski, 1896, 50). A similar fate befell the St. Agnieszka Fair organized in about the same time; eventually, it also ceased to attract customers. Meanwhile, resources were accumulated gradually among the "basic" entrepreneurs of the Zhovkivske suburb allowing big Jewish factory owners and financiers to penetrate into the Lviv market in the late nineteenth century.

The Development of Capitalism

Nevertheless, in the mid-nineteenth century the backward artisan economy of Lviv began to change, and the economic elite tried to adopt new rules. Though slowly and partially, the city space acquired modern capitalist characteristics. Various changes in the political situation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were the main catalyst for these processes. The general socio-political climate was changed significantly by the 1848 revolution, causing a substantial revival in all areas of life. For example, the introduction of new conditions for farming in the surrounding estates owned by the nobility stimulated the development of agricultural machinery production in Lviv.

Large mechanized enterprises using steam engines were built on the northern outskirts of Lviv. Two large steam mills stood on ul. Mlynarska (now vul. Lemkivska), and it was from them that the street got its name in 1871. One of these mills belonged to Robert Doms, a famous Lviv capitalist of German origin. Steam energy was also used in everyday life: the city steam bathhouse was opened in the former brewery of Jan Karpf on what is now vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho near the St. Onuphrius monastery in 1840 (Schnür-Pepłowski, 1896, 175).

The general appearance of Pidzamche was changing. Typical long single-storied industrial buildings were constructed along the streets. A building of this kind has been preserved on vul. Donetska, 5.

However, the transition to new modern principles was very slow and lasted till the 1870s-1880s. The Lviv Craftsmen and Industrialists Society "Gwiazda" (Eng. Star), founded in 1868, did not contain the word "industrialists" in its name at the beginning, the latter being added only later. The decisive blow at the old economic system was striken by a large-scale infrastructure project of the railway construction. The same post-revolutionary uncertainty in international politics forced the Austrian government to finally address the problem of rapid transport between all corners of the empire.

The administration and the industrial elite of Lviv also pinned high hopes on the railway. After the construction of a westward railway was completed in 1861, connecting Lviv and Vienna, it was a turn for the eastward direction, to Brody. The fact that the Lviv city council members decided to intervene in the process of deciding on a particular route of the "Lviv-Brody" railway section going through the city clearly shows what an extremely important role the railway was to play, according to officials. They saw in it a long-awaited chance to finally fully experience the breath of modernity, an opportunity for a rapid transformation of Lviv into a full-fledged Western-type modern city. According to the initial plans of the Austrian government, the "Lviv-Brody" railway was to skirt the city on the north going from the main station on vul. Horodotska through the villages of Klepariv and Zboiska. The Lviv authorities, however, were convinced that only the proximity of the future railway to the city center would help to transform Lviv into a modern metropolis and its northern suburbs into a developed district with new buildings. So they made every effort to persuade Vienna to build the railway not on the outskirts, as it was planned, but through the city, not far from the center. In particular, among important counter arguments there was one saying that "the embankment, which would be necessarily built in the process of the track construction, would cross the Zhovkivske suburbs and greatly complicate the transport communication between the divided parts of the city" (Wierzbicki, 1907, 19). In response the city council members claimed one thing: the implementation of their will "would ensure the growth and development of the city now and forever, whereas the rejection would cause a clear decline of the city" (Wierzbicki, 1907, 20). This "passionate" request was satisfied: in 1869, a new railway line crossed northern Lviv which was laid in close proximity to the city center.

The reality, however, turned out to be less grand than the city council's plans. The railway really revived the industrial activity in the Zhovkivske suburb quite noticeably, but no rapid positive changes could be seen. On the contrary, there was an additional negative factor: the railway embankment cut some quarters from the center, complicating the access. However, an important feature of the railway became evident, albeit indirectly. The fast and convenient transport contributed to the influx of large numbers of cheap and quality goods to Lviv and Galicia. On the one hand, it was the last decisive blow at traditional crafts and brought in Lviv context the concept of real competition, which one could not shut oneself from by a wall of anti-Semitic reasons and habitual patterns of thinking and behavior (Lviv industrialists themselves acknowledged a "lack of the appropriate spirit of industrial entrepreneurship") (Saryusz-Zaleski, 1930, 91). On the other hand, there was a "growth of consumerist attitudes, as not only among landowners and officials, but also in the families of priests, peasants, and even orthodox Jews furniture, fashionable clothes, and new foodstuffs (rice, tea, and coffee) began to appear which had not been seen previously" (Грицак, 2006).

Regarding the railway line, laid almost through the city center, this circumstance also affected the space of the Zhovkivske suburb in another way (though not quite as the city council members expected). The railway embankment formed a physical boundary between "closer" and "further" Pidzamche, thus forming a separate district with a new modern identity. A suburban nook, hidden behind the northern slopes of the Zamkova (Castle) Hill, had a long, "princely" history. In the medieval times, in addition to the Ruthenians, there were Armenian and Tatar communities there, thus distinguishing this territory from the neighborhoods located to the west of the Vysokyi Zamok and traditionally inhabited by the Jews. In the first half of the nineteenth century "further" Pidzamche was already a vague "grey zone" between the city and the suburban villages, whose main feature was smuggling alcohol. The construction of an important railway station greatly changed the look of the place. The railway stimulated the transformation of the local handicraft workshops into full-fledged factories and the emergence of new enterprises. The workers were recruited mainly from local residents, so the traditional smugglers', petty traders' and unskilled laborers' neighborhood acquired some features of a modern working district.

The new railway station was named after the name of the old 'princely' quarters. However, it was the station's vicinities that became a place where Lviv's new modern industry was concentrated; therefore, it had the most progressive regime of production at that time. A modern industrial space appeared in the city, connecting Lviv with the space of other West European cities. In general, however, nineteenth-century Lviv was still an administration center and not an industrial one; local officials seemed more interested in agriculture than in industry (Saryusz-Zaleski, 1930, 73). Pidzamche did not become a center of new city life, as it could be expected. On the contrary, the district's modernity and progressiveness went unnoticed by other Lviv inhabitants. From the perspective of the center (considering a strong anti-Semitic feeling among Lviv's Polish bourgeoisie), the Zhovkivske suburb still remained a neglected area, destroyed by the "Jewish slovenliness" and populated by the "scum of society." The emergence of a modern district in Lviv did not become an event for the city: a separate modern space of Pidzamche was there for those who lived there, and did not exist for all the others.

Pidzamche in the Context of the Metropolis

In the last decades of the nineteenth century Lviv began to radically change. Undoubtedly, the position of the capital city of a large East Central European province included the presence of an oustanding potential for development, and Lviv finally started to implement it. The city chose the way of the final modernization, and its ambitious goal was achieving the status of a modern capitalist metropolis.

A significant development of local government in Lviv became an important basis for these processes. In November of 1870 the local Polish political elite achieved approval for a new charter of the city, under which the real power in Lviv passed into the hands of the city authorities. Thus Lviv got rid of an excessive care on the part of the Austrian administration and passed to a more or less real self-government. This enabled Lviv residents to engage in the development of the city from their own local perspective. Following the example of major European cities, they began to develop the city's street space, building up streets and a proper infrastructure. Once the authorities signed concession contracts with European firms, gas lamps and horse-drawn trams appeared in the city. By converting the Poltva into an underground river the sanitary situation in the city was normalized and a new sewerage system was built. Another impetus for intensifying the process of the urban space development was the Provincial Exhibition of imperial significance held in 1894; the construction of a new electric tram, the first one in Austria-Hungary, was specially timed for the event. Apart from that, in the first years of the twentieth century Lviv had a city telephone service, a city power plant and a new water supply system (Історія Львова, 1956, 84-86).

However, all this was done presumably within the limits of the city's central and safe "bourgeois" areas. Some changes also occurred in the Zhovkivske suburb, although it was the most mundane aspects of the city economy that fell to its lot. Continuing the tradition of moving northward all "unclean" production, it was in Pidzamhe that the "City Cleaning Plant" was placed, on the Poltva channel, the so-called "Koryto" (Eng. Trough), where tanneries had previously been situated. However, the status of a modern metropolis called for a new, more considerate and civilized approach even to the "dirty" forms of the city economy. Therefore, the "sloppy", "spontaneous", purely "working" space of Pidzamche was also slightly changed and modernized on the initiative of the local authorities. As early as the mid-1870s new metal premises of the Krakivskyi market were built. At the same time, the city slaughterhouse was, for health reasons, transferred to the then outskirts of the city (behind the Misjonarzów square) and later, in the early twentieth century, to a huge complex, built with the use of the latest European technology (now vul. Promyslova). In 1908 a modern tram depot was constructed for the newly built tram line servicing.

Another important factor in the slow but successful modernization of Lviv was the development of the financial sector. Lviv did not form a large-scale industrial complex, but, as the administrative and governmental center of a large province, the city attracted huge cash flows. There were many credit organizations and banks, and this despite the fact that there was virtually not a single significant credit institution in Lviv in the first half of the nineteenth century (Saryusz-Zaleski, 1930, 88). It was the role of a banking center that was the determining factor of the success of Lviv in the late nineteenth century. The city created favorable conditions to maintain and develop those types of business which were coming easily. These were, primarily, food and light industry, metalworking, woodworking and construction (Дудяк, 2013, p. 522). At the turn of the twentieth century there were already many companies in Pidzamche which were quite successful in their fields. First of all, big steam mills can be mentioned, the mill of Robert Doms and the mill "Maria Helena" on vul. Lemkivska, the mill "Dawid Axelbrad i Syn" on vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho. It was also a factory of liqueurs and vodkas owned by the Baczewski family (vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, in the vicinity of the Zhovkivska checkpoint), Jan Rucker's cannery (Znesinnia area near the Zhovkivska checkpoint), the "Hazet" confectionery (vul. Tkatska). In the first years of the twentieth century a factory of pressed yeast and malt was built in the upper part of vul. Zamarstynivska, the first one in the city; in the early twentieth century a steam laundry (the first one in Galicia) and a dry cleaner's (the first one in Lviv) were built in the end of vul. Zhovkivska; a large factory for the production of paints and varnishes, owned by Henryk Blümenfeld, was built on vul. Khimichna. In 1886 a large factory of farming machinery, owned by Ferdynand Pietsch, and later a foundry, belonging to Prince Lubomirski, were moved  to the beginning of vul. Zhovkivska from Lychakiv.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century Lviv saw a construction boom, whose wave reached Pidzamche as well, almost completely changing the district's appearance due to new modern buildings. However, the rapid construction caused an equally rapid rise in house prices, as well as the construction of low-quality houses. Pidzamche was adorned with late Neoclassicist and Secession style townhouses, but these were "economy class" buildings, designed for getting quick profit from funds invested in the construction and not for comfortable living. It was either too cold or too hot in these houses, the omnipresent humidity and lack of sunlight was their common big problem. However, there are interesting examples of quality and innovative residential architecture among them, like Krampner's townhouse, designed at the architectural bureau of Michał Ulam (vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, 159, in the vicinity of the Zhovkivska checkpoint), or the so-called "exemplary" housing for workers — a complex of two residential houses built for the workers of the tram depot at Habrielivka/Gabrielówka (vul. Promyslova, 31-33).

The idea of the construction of asylums and houses for the poor, funded by sponsors, was borrowed from the experience of Western metropolises. In Pidzamche, it was mainly rich Jewish industrialists who resorted to these practices, caring about their brothers in faith. An example of this charity is a former hostel for Jewish working youth (vul. Lemkivska) built through the efforts of entrepreneur Jakub Herrman, a sponsor and owner of many Lviv townhouses and, particularly, of the famous theater "Colosseum." The hostel maintenance was covered by the funds received from the rental of some premises of the same building. Another charitable institution, the House of Poor Israelites, founded by Herman Hescheles, was located on vul. Zavodska (Melnyk, 2010, 142, 153).

In its important role of an industrial and economic district, Pidzamche was gradually involved in common practices of transforming Lviv into a modern metropolis.  The streets were regulated, either within the scope of communal arrangement or a commercial project, or through private ambitions of local businesses and real estate owners (Melnyk, 2010, 150).  Many projects of Pidzamche's space arrangement were implemented, but much more remained in the design stage (e.g., the construction of a new city center at Habrielivka) because of the beginning of the First World War. Probably the most important of these projects was the one involving the unification of the city with its suburbs into a single body (the so-called concept of "Greater" Lviv development), presented to the city council by engineer Ignacy Drexler as early as 1901. However, it was only many years later that the city authorities could proceed to its implementation.