infrastructure Archives - Forgotten Galicia

Combating Dust 100 Years Ago: Traces of Lviv’s Antique Central Vacuum Cleaners

Areta — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 13:24:43 +0000

A rather unique and rare remnant of the past found in Lviv is the antique central vacuum inlet — one small part of a central vacuum cleaner system that was installed in buildings still before WWI. Central Vacuum Cleaners A central vacuum cleaner works by sucking dirt particles through tubes […]

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Historical Manhole Covers: Przemyśl

Areta — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 08:00:22 +0000

In the part of Galicia that is today Ukraine, dating certain remnants of the past can be relatively easy due to the language of the inscription — anything in Polish dates from before WWII. On the other hand, in a city like Przemyśl where Polish was and still is the […]

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Boot Scrapers: Przemyśl

Areta — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 16:30:12 +0000

It was in Przemyśl, a small Galician city situated today in Poland near the Ukrainian border, that I first discovered what a boot scraper was and where my love for these remnants of the past began. I had first seen these odd metal objects in Lviv, but hadn’t given them […]

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Lychakiv Station: Lviv’s Forgotten Train Station

Areta — Fri, 11 May 2018 07:15:46 +0000

Tucked away in an old neighborhood on the east side of Lviv is the site of a former Austrian-era train station — the Lychakiv Station. Lychakiv Station, built in 1906, was Lviv’s third — after the Main Railway Station and the Pidzamche Station north of the city. The station was […]

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Lost in a Sea of Cobblestones: Lviv’s Historical Manhole Covers & Storm Drains

Areta — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 08:05:33 +0000

To find traces of Lviv’s prewar past, one must not forget to look down from time to time. Indeed, below our feet are hiding hundreds of manhole and utility covers, which have been serving the city’s infrastructure since before the war. These Austrian- and Polish-era cast iron plates cover buried […]

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Lviv’s First Centralized Fire Station

Areta — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 10:27:29 +0000

The fire service of the city of Lviv was organized on January 4, 1849, on the initiative of Mayor Karl Göpflingen-Bergendorf, and is one of the oldest organized fire brigade structures on the territory of present-day Ukraine. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, to further improve the city’s […]

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The Forgotten Boot Scrapers of Lviv

Areta — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 16:48:39 +0000

Many years ago I started noticing strange-looking metal objects near certain doors in Lviv. I didn’t give them much thought until I saw one in Przemyśl, Poland, and my friend told me what it was: a boot scraper. Little did I know that this was the start of a new […]

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Boot Scrapers in Oxford

Areta — Mon, 08 May 2017 10:02:24 +0000

In addition to its abundance of beautiful architecture, famous colleges and courtyards, spires, museums, and canals, Oxford also has its fair share of lovely boot scrapers. In a quiet residential area, I stumbled across a long street filled with boot scrapers — almost every one with a unique shape. But they […]

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Stiles in Bibury

Areta — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 15:53:10 +0000

The village of Bibury is located in the Cotswolds — a region in south-central England famous for its Cotswold stone (a type of limestone) and historic, charming villages. Along with the stone cottages, another feature of this region is its dry stone walls. While the oldest example of such a wall in […]

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Carriage Curbs in Lviv

Areta — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 11:15:07 +0000

In many of Lviv’s old buildings there is a porte-cochère, a passageway through a building designed to let carriages pass from the street to an interior courtyard. Along the sides of the porte-cochère is an elevated platform, which functioned as a sort of sidewalk for people to be able to […]

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