The Many Faces of Skaryszewska Street

Skaryszewska Street in Kamionek (Praga North) was laid out in 1883 and named two years later.  It connected Targowa Street, the Southern part of which was called Wołowa at the time, with Terespol Station. 

Currently its accessible part leads to Warsaw East Station.  At first the street was dominated by wooden, single-floor buildings with few brick exceptions, holding stables and other commercial buildings.  Some of the lots remained empty.

The oldest still existing tenement house is located at no. 2.  It began construction in 1879, when the lot owner was Józef Piotrkowski, and was completed in 1880-81.  Here one could find, amongst other things, at first the ‘Skaryszewianka’ warehouse for liquors and vodkas in the 1920s, then a confectionary, then a bar, a shoe shop, and, after the war, the restaurant ‘Maskotka.’  It is interesting that, following renovation work in 2008-2009, it was decided to leave marks left by artillery shells in the attic.  From the side of the garden, one can find on the wall of the tenements wooden chapel with a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

At No. 4, in a house that no longer exists, having been dismantled in the late 1960s, there lived and worked a warehouse worker and night guard, the writer Tadeusz Borowski.  He set his book ‘Pożegnanie a Marią’ on Staryszewska Street.  During the Skaryszewska Street Festival on the 8th of June 2019, a memorial plaque dedicated to Borowski, having been requested by residents, was unveiled on the building currently standing at that address.

Lots 6-10 were one great lot in the past.  At no. 6 is the only working umbrella manufactory in Warsaw, headed by Barbara Szafrańska.  The buildings on Skaryszewska Street were built in 1934-1936 as a modern school complex.  There was a shelter for the homeless here from 1939, and a temporary holding camp established by the occupiers in 1941.  The oldest residents of Skaryszewska remember the people who tried to escape the camp, climbing onto the roof of the neighbouring tenement house block at no. 10.  Currently there stands the building Special Educational Complex no. 89, and one of the rooms of the tenement house at no. 10 has been dedicated as a memorial hall.

In the tenement houseblock at no. 6 there lived sportspeople: the boxer Piotr Klemens ‘Kilmek’ Mixerski and his wife Zofia, a rower, with their sons: Andrzej, Maciej and Jacek, who were also connected with sport.  At No. 10 there lived, in order: Aleksander Czuperski, a great sportsman and coach for the swimming and water polo team CWKS Legia, and his sister, Józefa ‘Buba’ Czuperska, the Polish champion in swimming.

Among the attractions of Skaryszewska Street it is worth mentioning the Bell Museum next time the Church, at no. 12.  Skaryszewska Street celebrates its street party, which is called Skaryszewska Street Festival.  During its celebrations there is no lack of cultural spectacles prepared by artists with a special connection with Skaryszewska and Lubelska Street.

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ul. Skaryszewska – Kamionek