Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

■ The J/ugoólav Smbassy

(No. 129 Andrássy

út)

two museums was paved over with stone. The surviving trees were cut out in the early fifties when Dózsa

György út was

broadened out for the purposes of a parade route.

THE RISE AND FALL OF ANDRÁSSY

ÚT

In 1885, when the avenue was formally inaugurated and opened to the Budapest public, the majority of its buildings were already standing. There were very few free plots left. Along the avenue and in the Körönd,

the

young trees were opening their leaves. Coaches rolled down the wooden blocks paving the carriage-way. According to Krúdy,

the

Budapest ladies also moved from the Crown Prince Street to Andrássy

út, "became

every hat. every loosefitting őkirt

was

more conspicuous in this wide itreet, where no parasol, no shoe heel remained hidden..."

The Board of Public Works set great store by the elegance of the avenue, which is indicated by the fact that it refused to permit the laying of tram lines on the street. That was why the newly laid pavement had to be torn up and a channel dug out within a decade so that the first electric underground railway line of the Continent could be built. In 1896, at the beginning of the Millenary Celebrations, the underground was already in service, its entrances above the 63