The Market of 1671

This market has been here since 1671, and the date carries more weight than it first seems. A year before, Emperor Leopold had driven the Jewish community out of this district, leaving the houses empty and the city scrambling to draw new residents. Granting market rights was how they tried to do it.

 

Three and a half centuries on, the stalls are still standing, and this has become the kind of place where you can read the neighbourhood off the street. You find greengrocers who have been here for decades, Turkish and Balkan shops, and alongside them the coffee places and restaurants that put the area on everyone's list.

 

That last part has given the old nickname Mazzesinsel new meaning, because since the 1990s Jewish families have been settling here again, some from Eastern Europe and some from Israel, with schools and shops in the surrounding streets. It isn't a continuation of what once was, and it doesn't resemble it either, but it is the first community life of any real size in these streets since the war.

 

Three hundred metres further north stands the church where all of this began back in 1670.