Browse Items (226 total)

Krótka Street was typical of Bałuty in the years leading up to World War II. The cobblestone pavement possessed rain gutters but no sidewalks, encouraging pedestrians to walk across its full expanse. The single- and two-storey homes, usually made of…

A wooden building housing W. Orensztajn's hardware store, near Bałuty Market. Cars and open-air carriages are parked along Zgierska Street. Because of the proximity of the market the street is very busy.

At the lefthand edge of this photo, taken at the junction of Sienkiewicz and Tuwim Streets, we can glimpse a section of the enclosure around Church of the Holy Cross. A high wooden-plank fence on the other side of the church shields our view of…

The retail courts once found on Nowomiejska Street resembled today's shopping malls. In this one, the ground floor was occupied by warehouses, shops and various services while the second floor with its wooden gallery housed residential apartments. In…

Looking down Piotrowska Street from No. 26. The sign from a publicity sale on inexpensive books still hangs in the display window of the N.F. Otelsberg bookstore. Piotrkowska is bustling: in the crowd we can make out a man and a boy in traditional…

In this photograph, taken at the junction of Piotrowska and Pusta Streets, we see two government buildings, built in 1825–1826, rising up on either side of Piotrowska. Before the war, one of these buildings housed the Ignatowicz Brothers…

Piotrkowska has always been a street representative of Łódź. On this street one was sure to find all the most important factory warehouses, but upon closer inspection one would also notice its side streets teeming with various small shops and…

Wooden homes and tall apartment buildings made of brick or stone, cobblestone streets—whether one found oneself in one of the city's northern districts, like Bałuty, or in midtown, such an architectural landscape was characteristic of pre-war Łódź.…

At the time, Nowomiejska Street saw more commerce than any other in Łódź. Shops and service businesses occupied every nook and cranny in both the front and courts of the buildings lining this street. Thickly distributed across the space of this…

This bookstore's window display is packed with patriotic decoration: the Polish state emblem and a portrait of Józef Piłsudski announce National Independence Day, celebrated for the first time on October 11, 1937. This modern bookstore was the…