Abandoned Building in The City Center
Warsaw, the capital city of Poland. Here, between high skyscrapers, you can find an old, devastated tenement. Many people find this tenement scary, and they want it to be demolished. They think that the building destroys the urban landscape. Yes, it differs from surrounding buildings. Yes, it’s abandoned and needs renovation. But renovation, not demolition. All the demolition enthusiasts have probably never been inside. Today, we’re going to show you what is worth seeing in Lejb Osnos’ tenement.
Old Center of Jewish Life
This tenement house was a lively place. Here was a POL-Benz, a fuel distribution company. Unfortunately, the station did not survive the Great Depression and was closed in 1931). You could also find here Widerszal’s grocery store, Merder’s diary, Lepmann’s and Ret’s butcher shop, or even Lustman’s perfumery. It’s not the end of the list. People had their hairstyle improved in Geller’s hairdresser salon. Wine gourmets visited Fetman’s Corner willingly. It was a real center of Jewish life and business, and everything was owned by Lejb Osnoz.
The Osnoz Famly made a living by trading textiles. The business went good and they bought the profitable tenement house.The building was located at the intersection of the following streets: Prosta, Ciepła, and Twarda. The last one was the center of Jewish life. That was a perfect location for the residential building. When Lejb Osnoz bought the land, the small wooden house stood there. The house was quickly demolished and replaced by a four-story building. That was a piece of Jewish art similar to tenement houses located in Pańska st., Waliców st., Ceglana st., or Grzybowska st.During our urban exploration, we could see only the small part of the magnificent art from the past.
Abandoned Tenement House Architecture
The building had architectural features typical of a 19th-century tenement house. According to documentation the part located on Twarda Street was built first. That was a seven-axle tenement house, four-story, with a gate crossing on the sixth axis, and with an outbuilding on the left side. Later there was added a corner segment with short four-axis wings. The facade gained a vertical layout, highlighted by flutings with pilasters, running from the second floor up. The ground and the first floor were decorated by rustication. Modern for those times was the building top over the cube-based cornice. On the photos, you can see that there’s not much left of it.
What Happened With Jewish Tenement
During WWII, the Lejb Osnoz tenement house was included in the ghetto. As one of the few buildings in Warsaw, the tenement survived numerous bombardments. The building was used for many years after the war. There were apartments upstairs and service and commercial premises downstairs. In 2009 the residents were removed from the building due to its poor condition and moisture. Some people think, that the reason was different and somebody wanted to buy the place to build high-rise buildings. It’s hard to asses if this is true. We’ve heard only about numerous disputes regarding the demolition of the tenement house. Disputes ended in 2019 when the building was registered in Registry of Objects of Cultural Heritage.
Today the building is totally abandoned and it’s an interesting destination on our urbex map. Check out our photos from this amazing abandoned tenement house.