Pidzamche in the Context of the Metropolis

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.