Papnövelde utca/street. A mix of architectural styles: Neo-classical, Romantic, Eclectic style and Art Nouveau.
In the middle on the right: Ráth House: a fine Neo-classical house built by József Hild in 1841. Built for Károly Ráth, the mayor of Budapest.
Jobbra középen a Ráth-ház. Hild József tervezte 1841-ben Ráth Károly, Budapest főpolgármestere számára.
A short history of Pest Inner City:
Up to the first third of the eighteenth century the left-bank settlement, the historic centre of the former town of Pest, consisted only of the district lying between today's Liberty Bridge, Chain Bridge, Múzeum körút and Károly körút, that is to say, it extended only as far as today's Kiskörút (Little Boulevard). The town was completely rebuilt and it grew gradually; today, of the original town of Pest, there only remain some parts of the fifteenth-century town walls, and from the eighteenth century, only the churches, as well as a few monasteries and public buildings. In contrast to the Castle District of Buda, which is by-passed by the main traffic of the city, the Inner City, with its shops, offices and important traffic arteries, is part of the city's everyday life.
On the site of today's Inner City Parish Church, in the so-called "Barbarians' land" , a strong watchtower was erected in AD. 294 by the Romans; this they called Contra-Aquincum. At the time of the Magyar Conquest, around 900, the tower was used for defense and around it was built a town which, however, was completely destroyed by the Mongol invasion of 1241.
The new town was built on the Castle Hill in Buda, and Pest remained a kind of suburb, though owing to the Diets being held in the Field of Rákos, in the outskirts of the town, and to the national fairs held in Pest, traffic and commercial life remained busy. In the late fifteenth century Pest was surrounded by walls the site of which is revealed by the remains of some buildings originally built against them: some stones of the walls and of the town gates can still be seen.
In 1541 Pest was captured by the Turks, together with Buda, and its social and economic life declined during the 150 years of occupation. After its liberation, in the early eighteenth century, it received independent city rights and its development was greatly furthered by the rebirth of commerce.
In 1785 the Hungarian University of Nagyszombat (now Trnava, Slovakia) moved to Pest and thanks to this the city became in the next decade the centre of the country's intellectual life However, in 1838 the great Danube flood swept away almost all the old houses. Once reconstructed, the town began to develop by leaps and bounds, leaving Buda far behind. At the turn of the century, when the old Elizabeth Bridge was built, the new buildings along the main roads gave Pest a characteristic eclectic character.
The modern infrastructural development of the city was most impressive. Bridges were built over the Danube, and the first underground railway of the European continent was opened here in 1896. In 1873 electric lighting was brought to the streets. In 1887 trams appeared, followed in 1888 by the first suburban trains; in 1885 the first urban telephone exchange was installed; in 1896 the Post Office used battery-driven vans for delivering parcels; and in 1900 the Royal Hungarian Automobile Club was founded.