Bednarska Street is a street located in the northern part of the former district of Łódź, forming a boundary that separates three areas: from (on the section from to Unicka Street) and Górniak from (on the section from Unicka Street to ). It connects Rzgowska Street with Pabianicka Street and serves as an extension of , which was established much earlier. The properties on the northern, odd-numbered side of the street are situated in Górniak, while the properties on the southern, even-numbered side are located in Chojny (between Rzgowska and Unicka streets) and in Kurak (between Unicka and Pabianicka streets).
Bednarska Street begins at the intersection with Rzgowska Street, initially heading southwest. After the intersection with Julian Korsak Street, it turns northwest and ends at the intersection with Pabianicka Street. Its northern extension, beyond the intersection with Pabianicka Street, is Wólczańska Street. The name of the street, derived from the noun bednarz (meaning cooper, a craftsman who makes wooden vessels), has no geographical justification.
The street holds the status of a county road (no. 1105E). It is two-way along its entire length. It passes through , which includes the former factory park of (on the northern, odd-numbered side of the street) and the former Social Insurance Institution park (on the southern, even-numbered side).
The initial section of the street, up to the intersection with Unicka Street (properties numbered 3–9 and 2–20), belongs to the , while the further section (properties numbered 24–42) belongs to the .
History
Before 1918
The approximately 800-meter-long Bednarska Street was largely laid out through former expropriated and divided agricultural colonies and settlements – Dąbrówka Mała, Chojny Nowe, and Kolonia Chojny (Chojen AB) – and in a small part (the final section) through the area of Nowy Rokicek, a compact village initially part of the Ruda estate of the Kraków chapter, later a government village, which was redeveloped and privatized in the first half of the 19th century. These areas were incorporated into the administrative boundaries of Łódź only by a decree from the Council of Ministers on 18 October 1906. They are depicted in the Plan ziemiel prisojediniennych k gorodu Łodzi (Планъ земель присоединенныхъ къ городу Лодзи, Plan of Land Added to the City of Łódź), created at a scale of 1:8400 in 1907 by surveyor Hilary Szymański. Only Pabianicka Road and Rzgowska Street are visible on this map. Bednarska Street is visible on the City of Łódź Plan prepared around 1910 and included as an appendix to the Czas. Kalendarz na Rok 1911 (Time. Calendar for the Year 1911).
As early as 1896, several years before the street was laid out, an impressive villa was built near the later intersection with Pabianicka Road. This villa became the residence of the family – German textile manufacturers who had owned a cotton factory nearby since 1875, located on the other side of Pabianicka Road at 215 Wólczańska Street (now occupied by the Łódź University of Technology). Because the villa (now at 42 Bednarska Street) has a cartouche with the initials SI, art historian Professor from the University of Łódź is not entirely sure whether it was built by the Schweikert family or if they were its subsequent owners.
In 1906, German manufacturer Ernst Leonhardt from Saxony, co-owner of the nearby wool factory of the Joint-Stock Company , established allotments for workers. These were created along the area where Bednarska Street was being laid out. The allotments, named after Stefan Błaszczyk (now at 19/21 Bednarska Street), adjoin Legionów Park on the east. They are the oldest surviving workers' allotments in Łódź. Over time, due to urbanization, the area of the allotments has significantly decreased. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, they covered an area of 2.3 hectares and included 62 plots. The current boundaries of the allotments (as of 2017) are defined by Dorota Street (to the north and east), Bednarska Street (to the south), and the eastern boundary of properties numbered 6 to 16 on Pabianicka Street (to the west).
At 15 and 15a Bednarska Street, the Joint-Stock Company Leonhardt – Woelker – Girbardt built two nearly identical post-Art Nouveau villas for Ernst Leonhardt between 1907 and 1909, situated in a park-like setting (Leonhardt purchased part of the park reaching up to the planned Bednarska Street somewhat earlier, in 1905). The villas were occupied by Leonhardt's business partners – his brother-in-law Wilhelm Völker and Saxon Hilmar Girbardt. The private park was fenced, with two entrances from Bednarska Street (a third led from Pabianicka Road), but remained private until 1952 despite changes in ownership. It is likely that tennis courts were also built in the park along Bednarska Street before World War I, which existed there until the 1960s.
In 1911, Bednarska Street was first included in the house tariff. As of 3 October 1911, only one property on Bednarska Street was registered in the city land books – property number 4052, owned by Heinrich Haar. Two years later, additional properties were included in the house tariff: property number 4235, owned by Hugon Schäfer, and property number 5 (number 4356), owned by Emil Diesner.
During the German occupation of Łódź from 1915 to 1918, German-language names were introduced. From 1916 until the end of the occupation in 1918, Bednarska Street was named Böttcherstraße (German for cooper). After Poland regained independence, the pre-war Polish name was restored.
1919–1945 Just after the war, the property tariff for Bednarska Street included, in addition to the previously existing properties, the one at number 7 (mortgage number 4356), belonging to Franciszek and Juljanna Kańczucki.
In 1930, a project was developed at the Social Insurance Institution's Project Office in Warsaw, led by architect Jan Kukulski, as part of the nationwide housing initiative of the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) undertaken by the ZUS Construction and Housing Association. The project proposed the construction of a modern residential estate for employees of Łódź's insurance institutions in the block bounded by Bednarska Street – Unicka Street (planned to be established) – Nowo Pabianicka Street (renamed Sanocka between 1933 and 1940 and after World War II) – Adolf Dygasiński Street (existing and visible on city plans as early as 1910, likely named in 1930). The trapezoidal-shaped block with an area of 7 hectares was also planned to be divided by a new street (Stefan Żółkiewski Street), thus asymmetrically splitting it into a larger western part (designated as the "workers' quarter") and a smaller eastern part (designated as the "officials' quarter"). The project included the construction of 12 residential blocks and a centrally located park in the first quarter, and 2 blocks in the second quarter. Some sources indicate that one of the designers of the Łódź buildings was Józef Szanajca (full-time ZUS designer from 1929 to 1933), though Jakub Zasina disputes this, noting that Szanajca's signature does not appear on any of the project's building plans stored in the State Archives in Łódź.
Due to limited financial resources, the technical documentation did not cover the entire project, resulting in only part of it being realized. Between 1930 and 1932, of the planned 14 blocks, 7 were built (a total of 514 apartments): two longest (about 200 meters), four-story blocks with an internal open courtyard at 24 and 26 Bednarska Street in the "officials' quarter", and five in the "workers' quarter" (assigned to Adolf Dygasiński Street – numbers 6 and 10, and Nowo Pabianicka Street, now Sanocka – numbers 20, 22, and 24). The apartments in the blocks at 24 and 26 Bednarska Street were generally larger and more comfortable than those in the "workers' quarter" blocks. 36 of them had three rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a pantry (or a so-called servants' room) with a total usable area of 85 m2. They were equipped with masonry heaters, gas installations with Siemens storage water heaters, toilets, parquet floors, and doors and windows with brass fittings. For the first time in Łódź, combined (Swedish-type) windows and panel doors were installed in all blocks. Each part of the estate was enclosed with steel mesh fencing, which gradually became overgrown with grapevine. Gates in the fence were locked at night by a caretaker. Until the 1950s, the estate had its own water supply from a deep well located in the Legionów Park.
According to the project, new streets (Unicka and Stefan Żółkiewski) were laid out in 1930. Later, between 1933 and 1934, according to the project by Łódź landscape architect , a nearly three-hectare park (much larger than originally planned) was created between Bednarska and Sanocka streets, separating the blocks in the "workers' quarter" from Stefan Żółkiewski Street.
The newly constructed residential blocks represent International Style within the modernist style, thus being compared to the works of the German Bauhaus and French Le Corbusier. The project's role in the city's spatial structure was defined as a self-contained crystallizing element, and its significance in the urban landscape as a spatial system dominant in architectural and urbanistic terms. Initially named Z.U.P.U. (Social Insurance Institution for Intellectual Workers), residents often referred to it as living in the soup (Polish: w zupie) or on the soup (Polish: na zupie). By 1934, due to the merger of five insurance institutions into a single Social Insurance Institution, the name was changed to Osiedle Z.U.S. (now Osiedle ZUS). The new park was immediately named the Z.U.S. Park.
In 1937, due to the nationwide economic crisis, bankruptcy proceedings were initiated against the company Leonhardt – Woelker – Girbardt. The following year, the bankrupt woolen goods factory, including the estate with the park and all the villas located within it, was purchased by the heirs of Markus Kohn, a Jewish manufacturer from Łódź who had died in 1921 and owned the Markus Kohn Wool Spinning Factory at 5/7 Łąkowa Street (now numbered 3/5).
As of 1 July 1938, all properties on Bednarska Street were included in an area of the city where keeping animals – swine, cattle, sheep, and goats – was prohibited by the decree of the Łódź City Starosta.
In April 1939, the Schweikert villa at number 42 was acquired by Józef and Kazimiera Usielski, who established a fruit wine factory in the adjacent utility building.