The Great Lock in the Lower Town

Trójka is not just the popular name of one of the primary schools in the Lower Town, or the grade in a student’s school diary (not necessarily the aforementioned Trójka), or the musical instrument played during various school assemblies at this school, among others. It’s also not just the number of the tram that once connected the beach in Brzeźno with the beach in Stogi (many people still remember the days when this line ran as number 13). Or the name of a radio station that some residents of this district have listened to for years.

Three – this is how many sections some streets in the Lower Town were once divided into. This was the case with Szopy, Kamienna Grobla, and Ułańska streets, discussed earlier in this series. A similar situation once existed with Śluza Street, which began where Reduta Wyskok now meets Reduta Miś, and ended at the junction of Kamienna Grobla Streets II and III. At its end, as early as 1615, the Great Lock operated, draining water through the Lock Canal to the New Motława River. As with many other streets in the Lower Town (e.g., Szuwary, Zielona, ​​or Dolna), the drainage ditch running centrally through this area contributed to each bank of the newly created canal having its own name. From 1650, the one on the northern side was called Schleusen Gasse, or Śluzowa Street (not Śluza as it is today). And the one on the southern side was Borngasse, or Studzienna Street (the name came from a pumping well installed near the Great Lock). The division of both banks into three parts occurred at their intersections with cross streets. Thus, Śluzowa/Studzienna I ran from Kamienna Grobla to Jałmużnicza/Jaskółcza Street, and II from Jałmużnicza/Jaskółcza to Łąkowa Street. A III from Łąkowa to the fortification ramparts on the former Redutowa Street (now the above-mentioned Wyskok Redoubt and Miś Redoubt).

At the beginning of the 18th century, the name Studzienna disappeared from maps, and the general name Śluzowa applied to both banks of the drainage canal. At the same time, the division into sections I to III was eliminated. The history of the Lower Town, for several decades, also marked an episode in which the aforementioned northern side adopted the name Schleusen Gasse linker Hand, or Śluzowa Street on the left, and the southern side Schleusen Gasse rechter Hand, or Śluzowa Street on the right. Another change came in 1822. That’s when the division into left and right sides disappeared from the names. And in the second half of the 19th century, the aforementioned drainage canal was finally filled in. Instead of two banks, it was possible to speak of two sides of the road, the name Śluzowa lasting until 1945. After the war, the street was renamed Śluza Street. However, it continued to run its entire length, from the bastions to the Kamienna Grobla. The last visible change in the topography of this part of the Lower Town occurred in the first half of the 1970s, when the eastern section of Śluza Street received a new patron. Professor Zdzisław Kieturakis, who died in November 1971, became the patron.

In the place where the residential building now stands (at the corner of Śluza and Kamienna Grobla Streets), a recycling collection point and a vehicle repair shop operated for many years after the war. However, not everyone is aware that before the war, an oil mill, and later a margarine factory, operated in the same location on a vast area. (We even published an article about that mill some time ago.) This fragment of the mill’s letterhead shows how much space it occupied.

It was bounded on one side by the aforementioned Kamienna Grobla Street, and on the other by Jałmużnicza Street. This postcard shows fragments of the mill’s chimneys in the distance. Crossing Jałmużnicza Street, but not reaching Łąkowa/Wróbla Street, before the war, you’d pass two school buildings. You can learn more about them in articles titled “Classroom” and “Mosaic.” For many years after the war, this spot served as one of the two taxi ranks in the Lower Town (the other was on Chłodna or Dolna Street, depending on which period of its existence we’re talking about). And on Fridays, just a few (or a dozen) years ago, you could buy fresh fish for dinner in that area straight from your car. Between 1838 and 1870, where the tenement houses now stand—the nicely renovated one at Łąkowa 34 (formerly Śluzowa 11) and the tragically-looking twin (formerly Śluzowa 12, now at Śluza 2), as well as the building at Śluza 4, a cured meat factory called Soerman & Soon operated.

And in the aforementioned house at 12 Śluzowa Street, 40-50 years later, Stanisław Czarnecki, a merchant and real estate agent, was thriving. He offered for sale, among other things, a knight’s estate, a lordly estate, a farm, and a knight’s village. Meanwhile, in the mid-1930s, Juda Kraushaar’s laundry and ironing shop operated at number 2 (corner of Śluza and Jałmużnicza Streets). We also know of interesting pre-war correspondence from one of the residents of the house at number 9/10, sent to a future employee of the Consulate General of Jerusalem.
In the last section of the street in question—the one now called Kieturakisa and running towards the intersection of Miś and Wyskok Reduty Streets—the buildings of the former hospital complex, originally named the Hospital of the Blessed Virgin Mary, tower over everything. The hospital operated here from 1853 to 2003. After its closure, the entire complex waited for a new owner for quite a few years. It wasn’t until late 2021 (six years after the purchase) that its new purpose officially became a hotel. Since then, the Arche Dwór Uphagena hotel has been open there until now. In 1963, an altar was erected across the street, built for the Corpus Christi procession, and it still haunts the memories of former residents of that part of the Lower Town.

Article author: Jacek Górski.

Source of the letterhead with a view of the oil mill from Kamienna Grobla, Śluzowa, and Jałmużnicza Streets: State Archives in Gdańsk at 5 Wałowa Street. Item number: 3/3774. File unit number: 10/15/0/-/2196. Source of the 1920 advertisement: “Kurjer Warszawski” (morning edition). Issue 106 of April 17, 1920, p. 1. Source of the 1935 advertisement: “Gdańsk Guard: organ of the Central Electoral Committee for the Grand Duchy of Gdańsk,” issue 4, no. 28 (October 15, 1935), p. 15. The map of Gdańsk from which the selected fragment comes was published in 1802.
Author of the black-and-white photographs: Artur Wołosewicz. Source: Sobiecka L., Kaliszczak M. (ed.), Gdańsk – Dolne Miasto. Historical and urban documentation, PP Monument Conservation Workshops, Gdańsk Branch, Scientific and Historical Documentation Workshop, Gdańsk 1979.f