Szablyár Péter: Sky-high - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2007)

Some special Towers

■ The Peit Town Hall. F. X. Sandmann’i lithography bated on a drawing by Rudolf Alt

and Millers' Mill —1855; Rolling Mill —1888; Schmidt and Császár Mill - 1890, etc.) whose number grew six-fold in the fifty years following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise posed a heightened fire hazard. Constant fire-observation service came to be of vital importance. Sentry posts were set up in the Town Hall Tower and the belfry of the Theresa Town Parish Church. The ever-growing height of Pest’s buildings gradually rendered the latter unfit for the purpose as the assigned observation area could not be properly surveyed from its vantage point. That was how the Town Hall Tower gained extra significance. In 1871, its four-person fire- observation post was connected by telegraph service to the other posts of fire wardens in Joseph, Theresa and Francis towns. According to standing orders issued at the time "the tower watchmen must give warning in the event of any fire starting in Pest by the sounding of a bell. The warning sign must be 1 ring in the Inner City, 2 in Francis Town, 3 in Joseph Town, 4 in Leopold Town, 5 in Theresa Town, and 6 outside the gate-bar or in the Buda districts."

In October of 1897 the fire station was moved from the Town Hall Tower to the tower of the then rebuilt Church of Our Lady (Matthias Church) in the castle district, where it continued in service until 1911.

72