Good vibrations
What is Warsaw's favorite cinema? Where do the city's citizens want to spend their Saturday night on the town and stroll through on Sunday afternoon? And what parts of Warsaw do people most identify with? A recent survey conducted by daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza sought to find the most positive places in Warsaw and some of the results may prove controversial.
Warsaw citizens were asked to vote for the most attractive and positively vibrating places in categories such as the most interesting building, square, street, park, cinema, or nightclub. The winners were, respectively, Warsaw University Library, Plac Trzech Krzyży, ul. Próżna, Łazienki, Luna and Le Madame.
What is characteristic about these locations is that most of them are typically metropolitan and modern but at the same time citizen-friendly, cozy and intimate. "People like places where they can hide," Professor Maria Lewicka, a specialist in environmental psychology from Warsaw University, told Gazeta Wyborcza. "Warsaw citizens like old, historical places with a seamless character best. That is why the Old Town is so popular. However, such places are very rare in Warsaw, whose architecture in general is very diversified."
The choice of Le Madame as the city's top nightspot is particularly interesting as it is currently at the center of an eviction row that could see the club removed from its current location and will no doubt fuel the fire of protest at the venue's eviction even further (see page below).
"Próżna is a street, it could have 150 meters. It is not a neat and tidy place, where you can sit in a beer garden. Somebody might say that it is ugly. But that is not what Próżna is about. Próżna is the only street on the left side of Warsaw having prewar tenants on both sides. They are devastated and nobody lives there. However, it is still worth it to come here today," wrote Antek Ferency, one of the readers.
Clear Channel Poland, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Worldwide, which specializes in outdoor advertisements, sponsored an award for the reader who supported his choice in the most convincing way.
The prize, in the form of a billboard at one's disposal for a month, was won by Czesław Mirosław Szczepaniak. This is what he wrote about Plac Trzech Krzyży: "It is the appendix of the city with the side streets as its bowels, which are all worth wandering into. A typical Warsaw spin drier, where the world of politics mingles with everyday life."
"The vote was very popular among the citizens of Warsaw. Many places were indicated which had not been mentioned in Warsaw guidebooks before. We hope that, thanks to the survey, people will rediscover Warsaw," says the marketing director at Clear Channel Poland, Anna Nowakowska-Godun. "We are thinking about arranging a similar survey in other cities."
Warsaw citizens were asked to vote for the most attractive and positively vibrating places in categories such as the most interesting building, square, street, park, cinema, or nightclub. The winners were, respectively, Warsaw University Library, Plac Trzech Krzyży, ul. Próżna, Łazienki, Luna and Le Madame.
What is characteristic about these locations is that most of them are typically metropolitan and modern but at the same time citizen-friendly, cozy and intimate. "People like places where they can hide," Professor Maria Lewicka, a specialist in environmental psychology from Warsaw University, told Gazeta Wyborcza. "Warsaw citizens like old, historical places with a seamless character best. That is why the Old Town is so popular. However, such places are very rare in Warsaw, whose architecture in general is very diversified."
The choice of Le Madame as the city's top nightspot is particularly interesting as it is currently at the center of an eviction row that could see the club removed from its current location and will no doubt fuel the fire of protest at the venue's eviction even further (see page below).
"Próżna is a street, it could have 150 meters. It is not a neat and tidy place, where you can sit in a beer garden. Somebody might say that it is ugly. But that is not what Próżna is about. Próżna is the only street on the left side of Warsaw having prewar tenants on both sides. They are devastated and nobody lives there. However, it is still worth it to come here today," wrote Antek Ferency, one of the readers.
Clear Channel Poland, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Worldwide, which specializes in outdoor advertisements, sponsored an award for the reader who supported his choice in the most convincing way.
The prize, in the form of a billboard at one's disposal for a month, was won by Czesław Mirosław Szczepaniak. This is what he wrote about Plac Trzech Krzyży: "It is the appendix of the city with the side streets as its bowels, which are all worth wandering into. A typical Warsaw spin drier, where the world of politics mingles with everyday life."
"The vote was very popular among the citizens of Warsaw. Many places were indicated which had not been mentioned in Warsaw guidebooks before. We hope that, thanks to the survey, people will rediscover Warsaw," says the marketing director at Clear Channel Poland, Anna Nowakowska-Godun. "We are thinking about arranging a similar survey in other cities."
