Porhászka László: The Danube Promenade - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)
Reconstructed railing and lamp post similarly floodlit Eötvös statue and the promenade bustling with life. What fundamentally changed the life of the promenade was the completion of the decorative paving of the esplanade (started in 1981 and finished in 1983) as part of the overall work related to the construction of the Hotel Forum. What is even more important is that on this occasion motor traffic was banned from the area. The separation of the pavement from the street level was therefore eliminated with the laying down of washed-surface, cast- stone slabs. It was also then that the cast-iron railing separating the tram line was restored and when replicas of the old Buchwald chairs appeared together with the ornamental cast-iron pillars from which hung chain-barriers closing the precinct to traffic. The baskets protecting tree trunks, the disc-shaped grills around tree-bottoms, the Haidecker-wire tipping litter-bins and the traditional green- and-yellow telephone booths and red letter boxes also evoke the atmosphere of the turn of the century. The old trees had been badly damaged during the war and given that construction work had grown too large, they were now 47
