fot. UM Warszawa

A balcony has been unearthed at Nowy Zjazd. It is a fragment of old Warsaw

·18 August 2026

A section of old Warsaw, which had remained hidden underground for 80 years, has been unearthed at Nowy Zjazd. During the renovation of the link road, the remains of three pre-war tenement houses and a preserved balcony were uncovered. This is part of the built environment that, before the war, formed a very distinctive and unusual corner of the capital.

Mariensztat and its history

In 1762, at the foot of the Warsaw Escarpment, the Mariensztat estate was established – a private town belonging to Eustachy and Maria Potocki. The name derived from Maria’s first name and the German word ‘Stadt’, meaning ‘town’. Dense, largely timber-framed buildings sprang up along the ravine, and the area quickly became an important trading centre. Fairs and markets were held here, whilst goods were transported down the Vistula on rafts. The nineteenth century brought great change to the neighbourhood. Between 1844 and 1846, Feliks Pancer designed a descent from the Vistula escarpment. A seven-span brick viaduct was built at that time, named the ‘New Descent’ and later the ‘Pancer Viaduct’. The road from the area around Castle Square to Dobra Street was approximately 675 metres long and 20.5 metres wide. Initially, it led to the ice-skating crossing on Bednarska Street. Following the construction of the Kierbedź Bridge between 1859 and 1864, Nowy Zjazd became an important route between the centre of Warsaw and Praga. In 1907, the viaduct was rebuilt to accommodate electric trams. In the years that followed, the thoroughfare ran picturesquely right past the Royal Castle, the Pałac pod Blachą, Mariensztat and the River Vistula.

Tenement houses at Nowy Zjazd

The unusual location of Nowy Zjazd influenced the appearance of the surrounding buildings. Tall tenement houses sprang up alongside the viaduct embankment, and due to the difference in levels, the entrances to some of the flats were situated several storeys above street level. Special footbridges led to them from the viaduct. The Binkowska tenement at 3 Nowy Zjazd was built between 1881 and 1882 to a design by Zygmunt Twardowski. It had five storeys and was one of the tallest tenements in Warsaw at the time. The three lower storeys housed small premises, whilst the upper storeys were occupied by larger flats. A footbridge from the viaduct led directly to the upper part. The staircase did not connect all the storeys, so the two parts of the building functioned almost independently. During the interwar period, it housed the Third Criminal Division of the Municipal Court. It is also worth mentioning the enormous building at 1 Nowy Zjazd, now the headquarters of the Mazovian Dental Centre. It was erected in 1868 as a three-storey steam bath building owned by Mikhail Zhdanovich. Between 1926 and 1928, three additional storeys were added. Before the war, it housed, amongst other things, the Railway Museum and, subsequently, the Transport Museum. It was one of the few buildings in the vicinity of the former Nowy Zjazd to survive the war and the subsequent major transformations of this part of the city.

The tallest tenement block in Warsaw

Even taller was the Matias Taubenhaus tenement at 7 Nowy Zjazd, on the corner of Garbarska Street. It was built between 1910 and 1911 and had nine storeys. Upon completion, it was the tallest tenement in Warsaw. The design is most often attributed to Henryk Stifelman and Stanisław Weiss, whilst the construction was supervised by Próchniewski and Reinberg. The Taubenhaus building also made use of the difference in levels at the viaduct. At the height of the third floor, there was a walkway leading from Nowy Zjazd to the building. The third significant building in this row was the Professors’ House at 5 Nowy Zjazd, completed in 1925 to a design by Konstanty Sylwin Jakimowicz. It was built on the site of the Trachtenberg tenement house, the construction of which had begun in 1914. The five-storey building with an attic comprised 20 large flats and had a volume of approximately 12,000 cubic metres. It belonged to the ‘Siedziba’ Building Cooperative, an association of professors from the University of Warsaw.

Footbridges spanning the street

The footbridges leading from the viaduct to the tenement blocks created a very picturesque and distinctive landscape. They were necessitated by the huge difference in height between the embankment and the street below. In the Binkowska Tenement, a footbridge led to the larger flats on the upper floors. In the Professors’ House, the entrance from the viaduct was at the level of the third storey. Access to the Taubenhaus was arranged in a similar way. For the residents, the ‘ground floor’ could therefore be several storeys above the pavement. Andrzej Łapicki, who spent his childhood in the Professors’ House, recalled the passage from the viaduct to the building. According to his account, there were also instances of people jumping to their deaths from the bridges and galleries. The tall façades at the edge of the embankment, the viaduct running over the street and the suspended walkways were undoubtedly among the most extraordinary sights of pre-war Warsaw.

The war and the post-war demolition of the tenement blocks

In August 1944, the buildings in the Nowy Zjazd area were severely damaged. The tenement houses at numbers 2, 4 and 6 were burnt down on 2 August and were never rebuilt. A day later, the Binkowska tenement house was burnt down. On the same day, at the Professors’ House, the Germans murdered around 15 residents, including professors from the University of Warsaw, before setting fire to the building and pelting it with grenades. The Taubenhaus survived in a much better condition. The roof burnt down, but the external walls and most of the ceilings remained intact. The Professors’ House could also have been rebuilt; it would even have made sense to lower it by two storeys. On 6 March 1948, however, the plan for the new Mariensztat, linked to the construction of the W-Z Route, was approved. As part of the project, work began on demolishing pre-war buildings. The Professors’ House was demolished in the second half of 1948, and the Taubenhaus in early 1949. The lower storeys did not need to be demolished; they were simply filled in. They remained buried beneath the street for nearly 80 years.

Demolition of the flyover and tenement houses, 1940s. Source: NAC – National Digital Archives

A balcony at Nowy Zjazd

A few days ago, whilst renovating the Nowy Zjazd link road, workers came across the remains of three former tenement houses. The discovery immediately captured the imagination of Warsaw’s residents, and archaeological excavations began on site, during which fragments of the Binkowska Tenement, the Professors’ House and the Taubenhaus Tenement were uncovered. These are situated roughly at the level of the second and third floors of the original buildings. The current ground level lies considerably higher than the pre-war street, which is why parts of the houses that were originally situated high above the pavement have been preserved underground. The balcony of the Professors’ House caused the greatest sensation. It is an authentic fragment of the pre-war building that survived the war, demolition and the construction of the W-Z Route. The Mazovia Provincial Conservator of Monuments decided to excavate and secure it, with a view to displaying it in the future. The discovery also makes it possible to reconstruct the former street level and the relationship between the tenement houses and the Pancera Viaduct.

A fragment of a city that no longer exists

We know the pre-war Nowy Zjazd today from old photographs, postcards, documents and memoirs. The photographs show the Pancera Viaduct, the Kierbedź Bridge, the Royal Castle, the Pałac pod Blachą and the tall tenement houses along the embankment. Now we can add a stone balcony to these materials – a tangible fragment of that development. The uncovered element has survived in its original location for several decades. This remarkable find proves once again that, as we stroll through the streets of today’s Warsaw, we are walking over an underground city that still awaits rediscovery from the shadows of history.

Source: ZDM Warsaw, varsavianista.pl,warszawa1939.pl,whu.org.pl

Nowy Zjazd Street in the 1920s – a view of the Warsaw University Professors’ House and the same scene today. Source: NAC – National Digital Archives and Mateusz Markowski/WhiteMAD

The Pancera Viaduct and the tenement house at 7 Nowy Zjazd, circa 1915 and today. Source: Polona and Mateusz Markowski/WhiteMAD

1 Nowy Zjazd, 1941 and 2026. Source: State Archives in Warsaw and Mateusz Markowski/WhiteMAD

Houses on Nowy Zjazd Street in 1943 and the same view today. Source: NAC – National Digital Archive and Mateusz Markowski/WhiteMAD

A view of the demolished Kierbedź Bridge and the ruins of Mariensztat in 1946, and the same location today. Source: szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl and Google Earth