Porhászka László: The Danube Promenade - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

A RÜINED MAIN ENTRY TO THE DCJNAPALOTA

“It seemed the Ritz had huge reserves of rice. The smoking tureens were covered with silver tops and French wine was served with our peas-and-rice dish. We finished off a seven-course rice meal and the only concession to proper form was the substitution of paper serviettes and a glass tabletop for proper linenware. The shirt fronts of the waiters may not have been quite as immaculately white as they would normally be, but they went about their business of serving up the various courses in the same impeccably polite manner as if no guns were thundering outside. ’’

In a few days’ time the Dunapalota burnt down after receiving a direct hit. Indicative of the scale of the devastation is the fact that the estimated value of just the glass and chinaware destroyed in the basement was in the region of a million pengős.

The Hungária, the other pride of the promenade, was hit by a bomb on 14 January 1945. The building blazed like a torch for days, as did the elegant Hotel Vadászkürt at the nearby corner of Türr István utca and Aranykéz utca. Only its front walls remained standing. The Thonet Court also sustained serious damage, and the headquarters of the First General Hungarian Insurance Company, with the cafés on its ground floor, also burnt out. The roof structure of the Vigadó caved in and its precious interior furnishing was all but completely destroyed. Only the main

35