Józsefváros
Encyclopedia
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. It is the part of the city centre in the wider sense as one of the 18-19th century older suburbs, close to Belváros
Belváros
Belváros means "inner city", "city centre" or "downtown" in Hungarian. It is the name of the central part of most Hungarian cities...
.
Location
The main streets in Józsefváros are Baross utca, Rákóczi út and Üllői út; Kálvin tér connects this district with the 5th and 9th. Keleti (Eastern) Railway StationEastern Railway Station (Budapest)
Budapest Keleti pályaudvar , Hungarian for Budapest East railway station is the largest among the three main railway stations in Budapest...
is located at the junction of 7th, 8th and 14th districts.
Name
The 18th century suburb was first called Alsó-Külváros (literally "Lower Suburb"). It was named after the heir of the Hungarian throne, Emperor Joseph IIJoseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
in 1777.
Description
Józsefváros mostly consists of old, often neglected residential buildings with nice interiors. It can be divided into three parts, the borders being Grand BoulevardGrand Boulevard (Budapest)
Nagykörút or Grand Boulevard is one of the most central and busiest parts of Budapest, a major thoroughfare built by 1896, Hungary's Millennium. It forms a semicircle connecting two bridges of the Danube, Margaret Bridge on the north and Petőfi Bridge on the south...
(Nagykörút) and the roads Fiumei út and Orczy út.
The innermost, central part includes several remarkable spots, such as the National Museum, and the central buildings of the Eötvös Loránd University, the Semmelweis University
Semmelweis University
Founded in 1769, Semmelweis University is the oldest medical school in Hungary. The faculty became an independent medical school after the Second World War and developed into a university teaching medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, health sciences, health management as well as physical education and...
, the Academy of Drama and Film, and the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library
Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library
Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár is the largest library network in Budapest, Hungary.In 2003, FIABCI awarded the Prix d’Excellence to its central building, with the following description:...
, complemented by the Kempelen Farkas Student Information and Resource Centre. The Piarist Secondary School, the main building of the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church, and the Law Faculty of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University
Pázmány Péter Catholic University
Pázmány Péter Catholic University is a private university of the Catholic Church in Hungary, recognized by the State. Founded in 1635, the PPCU is one of Hungary's oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher education....
are also situated here, as well as the Hungarian Radio. This part is called "Palace Quarter", out of which one can still see Wenckheim Palace, hosting the Metropolitan Library, and Pálffy Palace with the Classical Music Collection of the above. This neighborhood underwent major renovations between 1996 and 2002 and it has become a happy, swarming place with scores of students and several cafés and pizzerias.
The second part, beyond Nagykörút (about half a mile farther) has a worse reputation, due to the prostitution that was rampant in the 1990s (and earlier), which has been mostly eliminated through cameras throughout the district. In this part one can find the Centre for Foreign Languages (the oldest and "authentic" language examination place in Hungary), Erkel Theatre (a department of the Hungarian State Opera House
Hungarian State Opera House
The Hungarian State Opera House is a neo-Renaissance opera house located in central Budapest, on Andrássy út. It is home to the Budapest Opera Ball, a society event dating back to 1886.-History:...
), the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Corvin Budapest Film Palace (a multiplex cinema), one of Budapest's biggest gardens (Orczy-kert), and a large complex of cliniques.
Its traditional craftsmen neighbourhood, which became a slum in the previous decades, is currently under re-development. The delapitated 19th century housing stock is cleared to make way for large office blocks and housing developments. Corvin-Szigony Project is the biggest urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
project in Central-Europe. The effects and methods of the project were criticized, mainly for the destruction of the architectural heritage of the area.
The residential parts occupy less area in the third part, which is noted for Eastern Railway Station
Eastern Railway Station (Budapest)
Budapest Keleti pályaudvar , Hungarian for Budapest East railway station is the largest among the three main railway stations in Budapest...
, Józsefváros Railway Station and Kerepesi Cemetery
Kerepesi Cemetery
Kerepesi Cemetery is the most famous cemetery in Budapest...
, one of the most famous cemeteries in Hungary, with mausoleums for the most reputable historical personalities.
Demographics
The population is relatively homogeneous with Magyar majority (89,7%). Józsefváros is noted for its high concentrations of RomaRoma minority of Hungary
Hungarian Roma, also known as Romani Hungarians, are Hungarian citizens or resident aliens in Hungary of Roma descent. They comprise between 2% and 6-11% of the total population...
(Gipsy) residents (3,4%). The district has attracted a significant number of Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
immigrants (0,5%). (2001 census)
Related novels and movies
Ferenc MolnárFerenc Molnár
LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...
's youth novel, The Paul Street Boys
The Paul Street Boys
The Paul Street Boys is a youth novel by the Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnár , first published in 1906.-Plot outline:...
(A Pál utcai fiúk, 1907), which was made into film several times (see the Imdb entry of the most famous version), originally takes place at real venues of this district: Pál utca, Mária utca and Füvészkert (botanical garden).
In 2004, a caricaturistic animated movie Nyócker was made about an infamous part of this district which has been screened in several European countries and won numerous awards on the international scene.
The starting and closing scenes of Fateless (Sorstalanság, 2005), the movie made from Imre Kertész
Imre Kertész
Imre Kertész is a Hungarian Jewish author, Holocaust concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002 "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history"....
's Nobel Prize winning novel, were screened in this district, namely at Lőrinc pap tér.
Twin towns
Józsefváros is twinned with: JosefstadtJosefstadt
Josefstadt is the eighth district of Vienna . It is near the center of Vienna and was established as a district in 1850, but borders changed later. Josefstadt is a heavily populated urban area with many workers and residential homes.It has a population of 22,057 people...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
Iosefin
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...