Red Tape Hot Box on where the streets have no logic
He had the address but couldn't find the building. We were standing close to the start of the street but the buildings had numbers like sixty- and seventy-something. Having no idea what happened to the first fifty-odd numbers, I shrugged my shoulders, as I couldn't help the poor man.
Only a few days later, while driving on the nearby Aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia, I noticed that a couple of buildings next to this street have an ul. Bema address, despite standing some distance away from the actual street in question. It turned out one of them was the building the aforementioned courier had been looking for.
Such anomalies are not uncommon in Warsaw. Having been reduced to rubble in World War II, and then falling victim to the city planners of the communist period, the city has lost many buildings, and with them many addresses. Mokotowska street, for instance, doesn't have a building numbered 1. But that's not such a big problem; difficulties arise when buildings that are supposed to be opposite each other are a few hundred meters apart. If Varsovians often get lost and confused in their own city, one can only imagine how tourists and visitors must feel.
Yet if looking for a particular building number in the city center can sometimes be difficult, then visiting the so-called blokowiska (housing estates from the '70s) for the first time is a nightmare. No buildings were built along actual streets, while paths and alleys between the blocks got the name of 'streets.' If things weren't difficult enough, the buildings were numbered in no particular order. Having grown up in one of those neighborhoods, I too was once stunned to see building number 12 standing next to fifty-something. And while it may sound funny (and look funny too), it's not when you really need to find number 30. Indeed, in the '80s, many taxi drivers would refuse to go to the Ursynów district because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to find their way out of the labyrinth. I guess if it wasn't for the Palace of Culture poking up on the horizon, most people still wouldn't have any idea of which way to go to get to the city center. It seems that even city planning proves, in bricks and mortar, that the communist system lacked any logic or common sense.
Only a few days later, while driving on the nearby Aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia, I noticed that a couple of buildings next to this street have an ul. Bema address, despite standing some distance away from the actual street in question. It turned out one of them was the building the aforementioned courier had been looking for.
Such anomalies are not uncommon in Warsaw. Having been reduced to rubble in World War II, and then falling victim to the city planners of the communist period, the city has lost many buildings, and with them many addresses. Mokotowska street, for instance, doesn't have a building numbered 1. But that's not such a big problem; difficulties arise when buildings that are supposed to be opposite each other are a few hundred meters apart. If Varsovians often get lost and confused in their own city, one can only imagine how tourists and visitors must feel.
Yet if looking for a particular building number in the city center can sometimes be difficult, then visiting the so-called blokowiska (housing estates from the '70s) for the first time is a nightmare. No buildings were built along actual streets, while paths and alleys between the blocks got the name of 'streets.' If things weren't difficult enough, the buildings were numbered in no particular order. Having grown up in one of those neighborhoods, I too was once stunned to see building number 12 standing next to fifty-something. And while it may sound funny (and look funny too), it's not when you really need to find number 30. Indeed, in the '80s, many taxi drivers would refuse to go to the Ursynów district because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to find their way out of the labyrinth. I guess if it wasn't for the Palace of Culture poking up on the horizon, most people still wouldn't have any idea of which way to go to get to the city center. It seems that even city planning proves, in bricks and mortar, that the communist system lacked any logic or common sense.
