Mokotowska Street

Mokotowska Street runs through Warsaw's Srodmiescie district and was laid out in 1770 along an older track connecting the city to the village of Mokotow. Before 1784 it was lined mainly with timber houses, small mansions and gardens; brick construction increased under Congress Poland and the street was cobbled by the 1820s. After 1882 elaborately decorated tenements, many of them Art Nouveau, replaced the earlier buildings, and granite setts took over from cobbles around 1915. Surviving houses include Mokotowska 12, completed in 1910 and then the tallest apartment building in the city, and Mokotowska 48, built in 1860, once home to the writer Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski and the naturalist Tytus Chalubinski. The Home Army's Ruczaj Battalion defended the surrounding area during the 1944 Uprising; the street was damaged but a good deal of its historic fabric survived, which is unusual in central Warsaw. It was entered on Poland's register of cultural property in 1965 and now holds independent boutiques, cafes and design shops along its restored frontages.