The More Things Change...

Erik has collected a few historic photos of our neighborhood that are prints developed from the original negatives (taken from 1900-1915). What is quite astonishing is how little the center of L'viv has changed in 100 years.



The first photo above features our apartment building in 1905, and the second photo shows it in 2007. Aside from having an extra floor on top and an alley where there was a storefront, the building has not changed much in over a century. The angle on the contemporary photo is different because a tree now blocks the view of the original photographer.



Taking a left out of our apartment entrance, and walking 2-3 blocks on Prospekt Svobody, leads you to the gem of our street: the L'viv Opera House. As you can see from the photos above, the Opera House has undergone some renovation over the last 100 years (note how smooth parts of the building are now), but the basic features of the facade remain the same. The tramvai line on our street is long gone, however, and smoke no longer billows out of the chimney (barely visible to the left and rear of the building).



If you were to turn right out of the apartment entrance, you would be heading in the direction of the market that we frequent: the Halitskiy Rynok. This market is the home of the Cheese Lady and the Ham Lady, and the Bread Lady has a kiosk nearby. The market is not visible in this photo, but it is just to the right as you approach the church. The large streetlight is gone, replaced by ugly overhead wiring, and modern autos (even a marshrutka) are visible in the contemporary photo. In many ways, though, L'viv is as it was at the turn of the last century.