N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
A city of vineyards and wine - from Budafok to Nagytétény
the south wall of a rectangular yard five or six metres below street level are a wood shed and three self-contained "digs" once let to tenants. Arranged in three larger holes carved into the northern wall of the yard is the flat itself furnished in the style of the early 20th century. The stale air, the mouldy furniture, the whitewashed walls and the appalling barrenness of the whole interior all exude an air of respectable but desperate poverty. Gone are now the smoking chimneys sprouting right from the earth once so characteristic of the quarter; some of the subterranean holes are used as storage facilities or mushroom-growing cellars. The problem of the caves did not go away, however. Ignorant of the hazards of secondary pollution, the authorities had some of the mine yards and holes filled in the sixties with slag, a side-product of town-gas making, whose toxic, water-soluble ingredients have continued increasingly to pollute subsoil waters ever since, as they have soaked the porous layers of limestone with poisonous matter. It has made things even worse that the impermeable layers of bentonite have been cut through at multiple points when the mains and sewer systems were built. In these places the pits carved into limestone have become increasingly moist, which has destabilised their structural integrity. With Budafok-Nagytétény joining the National Programme of Controlling Hazardous Caves, the work of organised assessment and prevention has accelerated. Preventive action was first taken in the public spaces around the centre of the neighbourhood, which was followed by the methodical dehydration of the rock masses above the caves utilised for industrial purposes. This was done by reconstructing the water mains and sewers in the areas in question. Preparatory work for the detoxication of holes filled up with sulphur-bearing residues is underway, as after their removal from the holes the residues will have to be rendered harmless prior to their safe relocation. One major place of interest under Budafok is the vault where the remains of the entrepreneur József Törley lie buried. This is in Promontor, near the factory where Törley established his champaign factory in 1882. On the hillside above the factory and the former owner's family mansion rises his domed, Oriental-looking Art-Nouveau chapel-cum-mausoleum (built to plans by Rezső Ray Jr. in 1907—09). Beneath the building is the crypt where the bodies of Törley and his wife lie resting in Carrara marble tombs. Budafok was awarded the title "city of vineyards and wine" in recognition of its international renown in the ancient art of viniculture. The entire char54
