Szeps Family Townhouse

The townhouse at Piotrkowska 70 has had several owners throughout its history, and owes its present brick form to Juliusz Schäfer. The property's mortgage number is 509, and its former plot number was 107.

From garden to built-up area

Until the 1850s, the property ended at what is now Sienkiewicza Street, with a garden occupying the rear. In 1851, six new building plots were laid out on the gardens of plots 68 and 70, along what is now Traugutta Street and Sienkiewicza Street.

Successive owners of the plot

From the beginning of the 1830s, the plot belonged to Wilhelm Höpfner, a hosiery maker from Saxony, who sold it to Joachim Roze in April 1832. In January 1846, Józef Simon purchased the property, in August 1848 Wilhelm Länger, and in July 1859 Jan Ramisch. In May 1862, Juliusz Schäfer became the owner.

Brick house instead of wooden

In 1862, a wooden residential house with tile roof still stood on the front of the property. In its place, Schäfer built a single-storey brick house, still visible in a photograph by Leopold Zoner from around 1895. A dye works belonging to the owner operated in the courtyard. By the late 1870s, Schäfer had purchased additional land for the plot, and in the 1880s the property passed into the hands of the couple Sury and Sucher Szeps.

Neighbours on the arcade

On the same side of the street, closer to the centre, stands the townhouse of Fryderyk Eisenbraum with an art gallery on the ground floor.

Opposite is the former Hotel Victoria, a nineteenth-century entertainment venue on Piotrkowska.

Nearby, at number 69, stands the townhouse of Hersz Nuchen Epsztein.

Practical information

• Address: Piotrkowska 70, Łódź
• Getting there: by tram or bus to stops on Piotrkowska in Śródmieście [city centre], then on foot along the arcade
• What to expect: a single-storey brick townhouse from the second half of the nineteenth century in the dense development of Piotrkowska