Hopeless weather – snow, rain and cold ruined our plans to visit Łódź.
We wanted to see the city in the part where it is modern and in the part where it is being beautifully revitalized.
We visited the Łódź Fabryczna station and Włókiennicza Street (formerly Kamienna Street).
As we did the minimum program, we hid in the interiors of cafes and restaurants…
The Łódź Fabryczna station (European premium class) impresses with its vastness and authentic modernity. The small number of passengers is surprising. For now, there is no connection with the Łódź Kaliska station…
An example of revitalization is Włókiennicza Street.
This is how it used to bein our country during communism and beyond. It is worth reading:
On the Łódź naszemiasto website: Tomasz Jabłoński writes:
"Kamienna Street, today Włókiennicza Street, became famous throughout the country thanks to Agnieszka Osiecka's song "Lovers from Kamienna Street" from the late 1950s. But among the people of Łódź, Kamienna/ Włókiennicza Street did not enjoy a good reputation for years.
Walking along Włókiennicza Street, it is impossible to forget its banditry, den and thieving tradition, which was passed down from generation to generation.
The truth was that most of the residents of the two- and three-storey tenement houses on Włókiennicza Street never worked, not so much because of lack of education, but because of the desire for easy and quick earnings. And this way of life was passed down from generation to generation.
Taxi drivers brought customers here at night, including those eager for pleasure in the company of women, because the girls from Włókiennicza Street, just like from the Łódź Fabryczna station, were cheap. The men, after a few drinks, were not too demanding and partied until the morning, forgetting about the world.
The traders were more clever. Alcohol was hidden in hiding places under the floors, in toilets and sheds in the courtyards. Sometimes traders would get a “tip” about planned visits from the police and would take their counterfeit goods to the roofs or paint the floors of their flats with oil paint, making it impossible to search.
Everyone in Poland used to know this street. Agnieszka Osiecka wrote the song “Lovers from Kamienna Street”, the verse of which is now engraved on a bas-relief built here on the initiative of a Łódź art group.”
On the city’s website about the fate of Włókiennicza (Kamienna) Street:
“(…) the launch of the street revitalization program in 2017 brought great changes. By 2023, Włókiennicza had transformed into a modern, colorful, postmodern woonerf. The city-owned buildings were renovated, equipped with central heating, and the water and sewage systems were modernized. The flats gained access to fiber optic connections. The courtyards of the tenement houses also changed. They were paved with slabs and stone paving, and benches and gazebos were installed. Lawns, shrubs and trees appeared. There were even birdhouses.
The current appearance of Włókiennicza Street is not a simple reconstruction or modernization of the 19th-century buildings. The past was used here as a material, a basis for a new creation. In this way, Włókiennicza became a stage for a new reality, in which there was no shortage of space for sometimes dark ghosts of the past, but also artistic, vibrant modernity."
