Grzybowski Square, Warsaw

A monumental 19th-century church, the surviving townhouses of Próżna Street and the 160-metre Cosmopolitan tower all stand around a single square. Grzybowski Square (Plac Grzybowski) is one of the few places in Warsaw where you can clearly see every layer of the city's history: an old private township, a Jewish trading district, the wartime ghetto, communist-era housing blocks and today's business district. After a redesign in 2009–2011 it became a quiet green square with benches and a pond.

History: from market to ghetto

In the early 17th century this was just a fork in the roads to Ujazdów Castle, Służewiec and the Old Town. By the mid-1600s it had become the market square of Grzybów, a private township named after its owner, Jan Grzybowski. After 1815 it was lined with neoclassical townhouses, some designed by Antonio Corazzi. In the second half of the 19th century the monumental All Saints' Church went up to a design by Henryk Marconi; it took more than 30 years to build and was completed in 1895. From the late 19th century the square was home mainly to Jewish residents, and dozens of small hardware shops traded around it.

In November 1940 the square was included in the Warsaw Ghetto, and after the ghetto was reduced in 1941 its boundary ran along the eastern side. All Saints' Church was then given over to Jews who had converted to Christianity; the parish priest, Father Marceli Godlewski, hid people in the presbytery, including the scientist Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld. After the 1944 Warsaw Uprising the Germans burned the western side of the square and the Aron Serdyner Synagogue.

What to see

• All Saints' Church, one of Warsaw's largest churches, rebuilt after the war despite the reluctance of the communist authorities.
• Próżna Street, the only street of the former ghetto with buildings surviving on both sides. Nos. 7 and 9 were restored in 2011–2013.
• A fragment of old tram track: trams ran here until 1985, and the line of the tracks is marked in the new paving.
• A boulder from 1993 commemorating the demonstration by the Polish Socialist Party's combat organisation on 13 November 1904, the first armed workers' demonstration on Polish soil.
• The Cosmopolitan tower by Helmut Jahn, standing on the site of the lost Serdyner Synagogue.

Did you know?

In 1863, during the January Uprising against Russian rule, the Russians executed insurgents here, and in 1904 eleven Poles died in clashes with police and troops. In 2007 the square held Joanna Rajkowska's "Oxygenator", an artificial pond with mist and air-ozonising equipment that won a vote for event of the year. The square and nearby streets appear in Stanisław Bareja's 1981 cult comedy "Miś", and since 2004 it has hosted events of the Singer's Warsaw Jewish culture festival.

Tripto tip

Allow 30–45 minutes for a walk around the square, a look inside the church and a stroll down Próżna Street. The square is liveliest during the Singer's Warsaw Festival, when concerts and stalls fill it; check the festival programme for dates. A few steps away on Twarda Street is the Nożyk Synagogue, and the Palace of Culture and Science is a few minutes' walk. Próżna Street now has plenty of restaurants, making it a good place for a break while exploring the centre.