Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
156 THE 1 9TH CENTURY - THE CENTURY OF GREAT CHANGES Walking along the parallel street leading to the Main Square (today Köztársaság Road) we can hardly tell that it is one of the oldest streets of the town because by the end of this century the houses built after the Ottoman occupation have been pulled down or rebuilt to bourgeois taste. The postmaster's house still stands opposite the Piarist Monastery and Church (in the 20th century the Industrial Yard, later the police station will be built in its place) and the chapter's granary at the bottom of its gently sloping garden at the foot of the Danube (does not exist any more). The road widens at the church into Szentháromság (The Holy Trinity) Square where the Friday fish markets and the Sunday fairs are held. Here are the buildings of Sokmészárszék ("Many Butchers'houses" until 1765) and the bishop's beer house where we can try the famous white beer of Vác. Let us walk on and around the Market Square, today's Március 15 Square. It has retained its role as the centre of craftsmanship and trade; what is more, with the revival of economy and financial life after 1867, new shops and credit banks are opened (or closed down). Markets are held here until 1951, which makes it a very busy square. In 1874 the order of the Holy Trinity Square with the Piarist Church, the Postmaster's House across, and the building of the Many Butchers' houses on the right market is regulated on behalf of the "agricultural communities of the country villages". By these regulations the handicraftsmen can occupy the area outside the Dominican Church, and from here as far as the Arany Szarvas ("Golden Stag”) Restaurant, the crop-carts can stay with space between them. For a long time the square has no green plants to provide shadow, that is why in 1877 acacia trees are planted on both sides of the square. In 1887 fashionable street lamps are erected in order to improve the appearance of the town. On the occasion of the millennium in 1896, i.e. the thousandth anniversary of the Hungarian Conquest, the Konstantin Garden is formed with railings around it in front of the Town Hall, in honour of Bishop Konstantin Schuster. The Kúria ("Curia” at 20 Main Square) is one of the oldest buildings of the town. It has been a lodging-house since the end of the 18th century, then between 1810-1818 the cadet-house of the Esterházy infantry regiment. After that it becomes a hotel again. From the 1880s onwards its banqueting hall is regularly used for housing theatrical performances, movies, educational lectures, concerts, balls and exhibitions. The eastern and the southern side of the Main Square in the middle of the 19th century (PMMI-TIM) There is no point in looking for Dominican friars in their white habits; their memory is only kept by the name of their church commonly called as the Church of the White
