Budapest – Városligeti Fasor (City Park Avenue)

Budapest – Városligeti Fasor (City Park Avenue) The avenue known today as Városligeti Fasor has borne several names throughout its history. From 1874 it was called Városligeti Fasor (City Park Avenue), from 1920 Queen Wilhelmina Avenue, from 1950 Gorky Avenue, and since 1991 it has once again carried its original name. Why was it named after Queen Wilhelmina? Following the First World War, members of the Dutch Reformed Church became aware of the severe hardship faced by Hungarian children. They organized a humanitarian program through which Hungarian children could spend at least two months with host families in the Netherlands. The first train departed from Budapest on 10 February 1920, while the 100th train left on 17 April 1926. By 1930, a total of 28,563 Hungarian children had participated in this remarkable initiative. Additional support came in the form of community kitchens that provided meals for approximately 1,000 children. The only requirement was that the children receive religious and moral education, which was offered through Sunday schools at fifteen locations in and around Budapest. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands served as the patron of the program, and in gratitude the avenue was renamed in her honour in 1921. During the communist era, it was renamed after the Russian novelist and playwright Maxim Gorky before eventually regaining its historic name.

During the final decades of the nineteenth century, Városligeti Fasor became one of Pest's most prestigious residential districts, although it had already been a fashionable area since the early 1810s. It became synonymous with wealth and social prestige, as prosperous entrepreneurs and industrialists built elegant summer residences here. Owning a villa on the avenue—or even receiving treatment in one of its renowned sanatoriums—was considered a clear symbol of status. The city deliberately allocated unusually large plots, indicating that the area was intended as a villa district rather than a densely populated residential neighbourhood. Property owners were required to landscape their gardens and position their houses away from the street, leaving generous front gardens. The avenue connected the bustling Király Street with City Park and the City Park Roundabout, providing an elegant promenade where residents could walk or ride in carriages beneath rows of horse chestnut and poplar trees. The original poplars were later replaced by horse chestnuts, planted partly to stabilize the sandy soil. The avenue gradually lost some of its prominence as today's Andrássy Avenue developed into Budapest's principal boulevard. The horse chestnut trees later suffered from increasing traffic, extensive paving, and the spread of the horse chestnut leaf miner during the 1980s, leaving none of the original trees standing today. The avenue now forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, although not every villa along it enjoys individual heritage protection.