Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)
Developing utilities on doctor's orders
epidemics, especially cholera and the plague, the authorities drew up regulations ordering that streets be kept clean and the ditches cleared of clogging. The few surviving reminders of mediaeval sewer systems in Hungary include the carved red-marble ditch discovered by archaeologists in Donáti utca consisting of two to three metre long sections fitted one to the other. After Turkish times, the royal chamber was at first in charge of Pest-Buda’s sewer system, but at the end of the i8,h century, the municipality took over the responsibility of wastewater clearance, whose expenses were covered from city revenues. The oldest pipeline section in pest was dug in 1780 under Zsibárus and Kötő streets (today’s Párizsi utca and Pesti Barnabás utca) built to carry into the Danube sewage produced in the House of Invalids (today’s City Hall of Budapest), the largest building of the period. Palatine Joseph, who regarded the cause of Pest's development as a personal issue, made special mention of the matter in a report he submitted to the crown in 1801: 'Tvery town needs a system oh underground sewers iJ the streets are to be kept clean and the population healthy. Householders ought to be encouraged to lay small outhlow pipes from their properties to the mains and to stop up the cesspools contaminating the whole street. ” The tragic consequences of the Great Flood of 1838 played a large part in the authorities taking serious measures to solve the problem of Pest's sewage collection in order to protect the personal safety and the private properties of the populace. That was because the flood had not been exclusively caused by the insufficient protection provided by the dams, but also by the fact that water overflowed from the sluiceless drains. The Palatine's Council took charge of the professional handling of the matter sending down to the municipal council in 1847. Its decree was entitled The Palatinate's regulations regarding the underground sewers to be built in the city oh Pest. The first legislation concerning the matter of wastewater disposal drew up a distinction between private and public pipes relegating the right and duty of building sewer mains to the municipal authorities, making it the responsibility of the same authorities to establish, in agreement with the local citizenry, the need for such instalments. At the same time as the sewer mains were laid, collecting laterals were also to be put in, but the latter were to be installed at the expense of each householder. The first areas of Pest to be provided with sewer networks were the Inner City and the south of Leopold Town; on the Buda side, the Castle District and the Watertown were partially canalised, but the areas between the trunk mains were still serviced by cesspools. From the early 19th century on, the supporting vaults and from the 1940s onward the sewers themselves were built of bricks. At the time of city unification the tunnel 66
