Radó Dezső: Parks and Forests - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)
ing provides shelter against the rain and a toy rental shop also operates here. There are sand-pits nearby and an adventure playground featuring artificial mounds, lots of slides and climbing bars. Children love to play here even in wintertime. Elsewhere in this area a Scandinavian-style playground was built with pile fencing and scaffolding-like climbing bars combined with slides. Another popular place is the tobogganing hill behind the building of the Horticulture Company. In wintertime it resembles a busy ant-hill while it offers a pleasant walk or sunbathing spot in summertime. The core of the hill is a former building demolished by a blast and topped with 40,000 m3 of soil. Since 1983 it has been known as King Hill as this was the site of the rock opera “István, the King”, the greatest hit of the decade. That corner of the park now occupied by the adventure playground used to be called the Tree Circle after the impressive plane trees planted by Henrik Neb- bien back in the first decade of the 19th century. Beautiful specimens of these 180 year old plane trees are found behind the Art Gallery. Three tall field maples stand by the Transport Museum. A group of Norway maples consisting of seven trees by Városligeti körút worth taking a look at. Beeches with hanging branches and crimson foliage also deserve attention. Near the Sió fountain a golden ash, a rare but magnificent variety of the common ash (Fraxinus excelsior aurea) adds colour to the autumn. An evergreen oak, a record in transplantation performed by the Horticulture Company of Budapest stands by the Hungexpo building. The transplantation was carried out in 1977 when the tree was 70 years old. The achievement required extraordinarily careful work and the joint effort of gardeners and technical experts. Soil was removed from around the roots of the tree in Vágány utca. A track was prepared for hauling and a pit was dug at the future site. The 10 m3 earth ball around the roots was enclosed in a strong framework reinforced by iron braces. Then the roots were cut underneath and the tree together with this huge mass of earth was loaded onto a truck by winch. The special cargo was shipped to its new place on Paál László sétány during the night. As has been mentioned, once the City Park was a swampy area. A branch of the yet unregulated Rákos Creek meandered here. The stream ran between the site of today’s Petőfi Hall and the lake. Some reminders of the former vegetation are a few plants such as the 17
