Gál Éva: Margaret Island - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

The MAC sports facilities at the beginning

OF THE 20'" CENTURY

gle horse that pulled the open carriage of the tram sauntered down the line leading from the villas on the lower island to the upper harbour for the last time. After that this romantic means of transport was replaced by the buses of our modern times.

Almost the whole area of the island to the west of the road is the result of embankment works. The filling in of the western bank, as mentioned above, began with the joining of the islet to the main island at the end of the nineteenth century, and then was continued in the first decades of the twentieth century to be concluded in 1928. The resulting growth in surface area (including the extension of the northern tip when Árpád Bridge was built in 1939-40) meant the addition of more than a hundred acres. As a corollary, the island’s flood-protection was also taken care of when the stone embankment of the eastern bank, too, was built.

Most new facilities (mainly sports facilities) built in the twentieth century have been erected on this new stretch of riverside land. Looking to the left at the beginning of our walk we will see a playing field, large expanses of sports fields with grandstands and buildings for dressing rooms. These facilities are now used by the Athletics Centre on the Margaret Island. It was here that the club house,

34