Compulsory readings aren’t normally children’s favorites, no matter how successful they are. The few Hungarian exceptions, however, include Ferenc Molnár’s classic, Pál utcai fiúk (The Paul Street Boys).
The story’s simple. Children play on the sandlot of Budapest’s Pál utca (Paul street) every afternoon, until it transpires that the redshirts, the rival gang hanging out in the botanical gardens, are plotting a siege, determined to occupy their ‘grund’. In the end, the boys, lead by Boka, subdue the enemy, but the smallest and most heroic character, Ernő Nemecsek, in the course of being a hero, contracts pneumonia. At his death-bed, members of both gangs salute, but the victory’s all in vain, as the sandlot eventually becomes taken away from the children.
The grund, there in that world depicted a hundred years ago, was lost for the children forever. The preservation and impartation of the values formulated at that time, though, were set forth as the objectives a hundred years later, to recreate the world of the grund and everything it meant in its time. With the creation of Europe’s largest urban rehabilitation program, the Corvin Promenade, a modern inner city has been born out of the old, infamous 8th district, with a new face. The area covering 2-10 Tömő utca, though, situated in the middle of the new district, was untouchable, due to its buildings of cultural heritage, and has now been saved as the grund – for good.
The Grund playground was completed two years ago; the famous log piles, refined to conform to today’s regulations, the shack, transformed into a functional guard post, to keep the kids at bay, and, in a surprising gesture, the entire text of the novel emblazoned upon the walls which were erected from the remains of the demolished buildings of the neighborhood.
Grund Hostel, the district’s first catering unit, has just been opened permanently, after last year’s test operation, housing a hostel and a night club. Run by the owners, who you’ll find standing at the bar and reception happy to tell you more, it does represent freedom: children during the day, adults at night, from infra-red field battles, to live concerts and DJ sets. And, aiming to offer something particularly authentic, they invite the best Hungarian folk musicians to perform a weekly jam in the bar every Monday from 9 p.m.