Újpest, miscellaneous photos - Budapest, Hungary

Location:

GPS coordinates: Latitude 47°33'39", Longitude 19°5'37" (N47 33.65 - E19 5.62) Map

The Water Tower is now a listed building, it was built in 1912

The water level of the Újpest Water Tower is 40 meters above the nearby Árpád Road, as well as 54 meters above the "0" level of the River Danube at Budapest. The total of 1500 cubic meters of capacity is practically enough to support even a complete settlement with population of 100,000 persons (at 150 liters/day/person water demand). The water was taken from the wells of the Népsziget ("People's Island"). Right until 2003 the tower provided the water for the surrounding factories as well, but since then it is not operating and now it is an industrial monument.

Water Tower of Újpest

The water tower in Újpest was designed by dr. Győző Mihailich and Ödön Dümmerling, the brick and ferro-concrete building was completed in 1912. If the resistance groups wouldn't prevent the plan of the retreating German troops in 1944, then this beautiful water tower probably would not exist today, because the Germans wanted to simply blow it up like many other building in Budapest.

Könyves Kálmán High School

The current neoclassical style building of the Könyves Kálmán High School of Újpest was built in 1914, designed by Emil Tory and Móric Pogány. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 the building was hit by mortar and it suffered severe damage, but for today it is completely restored. Moreover there is an astronomical observatory on the top of the building, it is the so-called Kulin Observatory which was built between 1950-1954 and named after the Hungarian astronomer György Kulin, who was also a teacher in this school between 1949-1953.

Polyclinic (outpatient specialist medical clinic) of Újpest

In Hungary the specialist medical clinics (outpatient polyclinics) were called "SZTK" for long time and sometimes even today. However in reality this acronym didn't mean the medical institution but the health insurance bureau behind it, this abbreviation stucked to the outpatient polyclinic buildings. The word "SZTK" means: "Center of Social Security of the Trade Unions" (in Hungarian "Szakszervezeti Társadalombiztosítási Központ"), it was established in 1950 after the hospitals and other assets of the predecessor "National Social Security Institute" ("Országos Társadalombiztosítási Intézet" or OTI) were deprivatized. The new organization was supervised by the National Council of Trade Unions ("Szakszervezetek Országos Tanácsa" or SZOT).

Otherwise from the 1960s all agricultural workers and from 1975 every Hungarian citizen got automatic entitlement to health care in Hungary, and the insurance-based system was ceased.

After the political system change of Hungary in 1989 the "SZTK" as a bureau was ceased, its successor is the National Health Insurance Fund (in Hungarian "Országos Egészségbiztosítási Pénztár" or OEP), which brought back the insurance-based health care system, although in a different form. Nevertheless, the "SZTK" acronym is still existing even today in the form mentioned above.