Bodor Ferenc: Coffee-Houses - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)

BüSZ (BÜS)

The Busz café stands forlorn in the upper regions of Moszkva (Széli Kálmán, Kalef) tér (square). Its bold, bus-blue neon lettering gives the impression of movement at full speed. Formerly this was the terminus of the 22 bus. Buses running the route to Budakeszi were always packed; market-women, intoxicated soldiers returning from leave were crushed against each other. Those who did not make it onto the bus went into the Busz café instead to drink beer alongside the conductors, busdrivers and mechanics celebrating their day off. Later the ticket-collectors would gather round the fancy cake counter and subversive pronouncements would be made. Today, beneath the peculiar, trumpet-shaped arch, honeycomb letters illuminated by neon lights, advertise the café’s wares. Decent, respectable pensioners while away their time here. A cur- tained-off corner represents the one and only source of excitement. Here a promising novelist (A. A.) and a rising director (B. G.) once met and ordered Hubertus. But that was in the beginning of the seventies.

5 MOSZKVA TÉR, II.

BUSZ

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