David Berger Tenement House

A three-storey tenement building at Piotrkowska 35 stands on a plot which in the first half of the 19th century formed part of one large property, encompassing today's numbers 35, 37 and 39. It was divided only after several transactions, before a brick building was erected in place of the wooden house, which has survived to the present day.

Shared plot and its division

The extensive parcel was probably purchased from 1831 by the couple Fryderyk and Wilhelmina Sperling. A single-storey wooden house stood on its frontage at that time, still visible in a photograph by E. Stumman from the second half of the 1870s. In April 1857 the Sperlings sold the property to their son Ferdynand and his wife Florentyna, and in November 1870 the couple exchanged properties with Ruchla and Szmul Mordka Lipszycy.

The Berger family and building of the tenement

In June 1872 the Lipszycy couple sold the property to Surza and Dawid Berger. It was the Bergers who erected in 1895 the three-storey tenement building that stands at this address to this day, hence its present name. A surviving design from 1893 concerns a brick, three-storey building with an attic and outbuilding. The next owner of the property was Franciszek Schimmel, who in 1910 rebuilt the windows and doors on the ground floor.

Arkadia chocolate shop and other tenants

In the 1930s at this address, as well as at Piotrkowska 121, there was a company shop of the Arkadia Chocolate and Confectionery Factory, belonging to Fischel Rosenstein. The building also housed W. Markus, who ran a factory producing semi-woollen and cotton goods, Leon Flatto's paper warehouse, H. D. Grus's storehouse of manufactured goods, and L. Siegelberg's fur and felt hat warehouse. Housed here were the French insurance company L'Urbaine, the Le Monde Moderne ladies' hat magazine, and the woollen and cotton goods factory of A. Magazanik and Sz. D. Reichstein.

Neighbourhood on Piotrkowska

A dozen or so metres further on, just beside the Monument to the Lamplighter, stands the David Szmulewicz Tenement House, erected on the neighbouring part of the same original plot. On the other side of the street, at a similar distance, is the S. Dyszkin Tenement House, and several dozen metres further on the Tobiasz Tenenbaum Tenement House.

Practical information

• Address: Piotrkowska 35, Łódź
• Getting there: on foot along the Piotrkowska pedestrian mall, between Aleja Piłsudskiego and plac Wolności
• What to expect: a three-storey façade of a rental tenement building from the late 19th century, viewed from the level of the pedestrian mall, with retail premises on the ground floor