Hajós György: Heroes' Square - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

The square today

The population of Pest found shelter in the park twice in the course of the 19th century. During the great floods of 1838, part of the citizenry took refuge on the highest points of the area. A decade later, when Hungary’s Revolutionary Army laid siege to the Castle of Buda, General Hentzi ordered the bombardment of Pest, setting much of the city on fire. Those escaping from the flames found refuge, once again, in the park.

After the defeat of the War of Independence, interest in the park dropped off, but the work was nevertheless continued. In 1871, tenders for the replanning of the town were invited. The proceedings of the June 1872 session of the Committee of Public Works record the municipal body’s intentions “to consider plans for the conversion of the City Park into a public space of recreational activities, representing as it will the highest standards of modern landscape gardening ... independently of the overall project of city development”. Meanwhile, the park became prettier and prettier as suggested by János Arany’s “Song of the City Park”, a poem written in September of 1877: “You have reeds here and hillocks and soggy-wet earth/ And maybe the reason I like it so well / Is that 1 followed for twenty odd / Years as it washed off its dust and its dirt // Not rising up touched by a wand ...”

Although the first restaurant opened its doors as

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