Seven springs and a village

Before Vienna expanded in this direction, a village with vineyards stood here, drawing its water from a handful of springs that gave this square its name. The parish saint, meanwhile, lent his name to the whole district.

 

The village is still here, as a shape rather than as a building. The streets don't follow the straight grid of the nineteenth century but curve gently, because they trace the old field paths between plots that were marked out centuries ago.

 

When industry arrived, that old pattern was filled in within a few decades with tenement blocks, and the population of this part of the city doubled in a single generation. There's nothing left to drink from the springs now, though the water was praised as medicinal well into the nineteenth century.

 

From here it's a few minutes to the park where the next half of the story comes into view.