Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)
house” by Imre Steindl, the architect of the Parliament building. It is ironic that this much abused ornament was the only one to survive the explosion of the bridge. The Margaret Bridge has no legends of its own. Even János Arany’s beautiful ballad on the bridge written for its inauguration failed to inspire tales about its subject. That much is true, though, that would-be suicides did in fact abandon Chain Bridge in favour of Margaret Bridge. There was a practical reason for this: due to the break in the bridge’s axis, if one walked half way down its length, he remained invisible to police constables posted at either end. The Margaret Bridge is a serious, colourless bridge. It was built to drain excess traffic from the Chain Bridge. The only historical curiosity worth mentioning about it is the service once offered by the so- called “nyargonc” or ancillary coachman. Stationed at the abutment, his duty was to help horse tramways to clamber up to the middle of the bridge with extra horse power. The nyargonc was in service until 1896 when the tram horses were replaced by electric engines. Four years later the section establishing the connection with Margaret Island was finally completed. Prior to that the island, that private property of the Palatine often opened to the general public, was accessible by boat only, even for the family of the Palatine. If one did not have a boat of his own, he could hire one of the boatmen stationed at the Lower Island by ringing the bell on the Buda bank. No crossing was possible after late afternoon when the official hours of the boatmen were over. The Lower Island, also called Painter or Small Buda Island, was a sand shoal by Margaret Island separated by a shallow narrows. Before the construction of the branch bridge started, it was erased from the maps when merged into the main island by filling in an area of some 35 acres. This work was an achievement even greater than the construction of the iron structure spanning a mere 70 metres. The design was made by Béla Zsigmondy, who supervised 30
