From Urban Streets to Suburban Malls
Piotrkowska Street: the main pedestrian thoroughfare of Lodz
Coffee break at the Fresco Cafe in Lodz
City leaders are looking for ways to attract business, visitors, and students to Lodz. From my perspective, Lodz is chalk full of potential. It has usable industrial space, historic architecture, alternative transportation, access to local food, and plenty of space. Once it has a vision and the funding and power to make it happen, I have no doubt that it will join the ranks of some of Poland’s great cities. In this post, I am introducing a feature the Lodz already shares with these cities. Every major city that I visited throughout the month had at its heart a pedestrian-only plaza. The plaz
as took different shapes, were used for different purposes, and had distinct identities. In Lodz, the main pedestrian-only thoroughfare is Piotrkowska Street, a 2.5 mile-long road lined with shops, restaurants, hotels, and night clubs. Outdoor art, fountains, murals, and small pocket gardens decorate the streetscape. These features continue down the alleyways that radiate outwards from the street. Here you will find small cafés and stores (such as the Fresco Café and a nearby Pierogarnia, where we took a short pit-stop). Investing in resources like Piotrkowska seems worthwhile, but I noticed a different, less fortunate
Pierogarnia restaurant in Lodz
Mall Landscaping at Port Lodz
investment choice poking out of the landscape just outside of the city: large box stores with the familiar gargantuan parking lots reminded me, sadly, of home. However, these shopping malls did have a leg up on many of the malls in my home state of Massachusetts. The landscape design incorporated bike paths, bus stops, and tram lines. Modern landscape plantings were more creative and imaginative than those traditionally used for mall landscaping. I was impressed and disappointed simultaneously, but overall intrigued by the differences in urban and suburban design.
Attractions:
***Piotrowska Street, a pedestrian-only street in the center of the city
* Port Lodz, a typical shopping mall with modern landscape plantings
Food&Beverage:
* Fresco Cafe, located at Piotrkowska 107 [http://www.frescocafe.pl/index.php] Coffee and tea, just off of the main pedestrian street.
* Pierogarnia, located in an alley just off of Piotrkowska.
from pierogi to pierniki 