Will the Girls Return to Włókiennicza Street on Easter Monday?

Three years ago, Easter Monday came rather late to Włókiennicza Street in Łódź. Immediately afterwards, the Great Revitalisation began on the street. The tenement at number twenty received planning permission in November 2018—was it meant to pull the entire street along behind it?

Włókiennicza Street was laid out in 1872 along an empty plot after the clay deposits of the former brickyard had been exhausted. ‘The barren land was divided into small plots along a narrow street only three hundred metres long. Its surface consisted of fieldstones, hence its original name, Kamienna Street, which remained in use until 1957. Redevelopment carried out in 1950–1951 demolished all the rear buildings along the southern frontage. The removal of intimate courtyards in favour of an open communal space caused crime to rise and residents’ identification with their place of residence to decline. Blocks formed from tenement buildings became a curse, and from then on Włókiennicza Street began to sink into the depths of ever darker notoriety.’

Never before has any street in any European city been required to promise so much. Already a promise in itself, it was tasked with becoming ‘trendy’ and beginning to straighten the city’s future. This project is a serious game: the city has never faced such a challenge. Support depends on whether one sees in Włókiennicza Street a chance to improve something. Life? At some unspecified time in the future?

Will the girls return to Włókiennicza Street on Easter Monday?