ul. Piwna - the longest street

Warsaw Old Town street - ul. Piwna, the longest street

The Old Town's longest street, it runs parallel to ul. Świętojańska, linking plac Zamkowy with Wąski Dunaj. Laid out when the town was established, it gained importance thanks to the 1354 Church of St. Martin and the institutions associated with it. In August 1944 all buildings lining the street were literally flattened. Their reconstruction took almost three years (1952-1954).

The finest houses in ul. Piwna are no. 6 (the post-war sculpture of pigeons above its doorway commemorates a legendary figure from the destruction of Warsaw, an anonymous elderly woman who lived in the ruins of this house in 1945 and fed local pigeons) and the Magier House (no. 47) which belonged between 1797 and 1837 to Antoni Magier, a physicist, astronomer and eminent expert on Warsaw's history. Other interesting sights include the former Augustinian convent now occupied by the Franciscan Sisters of the Cross (no. 9) and the former Augustinian Church of St. Martin built in 1354 and replaced in the 15th century by a stone Gothic church, its apse facing onto the street.