Tag Archives: changes in vienna

13A bus

11 Dec

Below is a sign of a big change in Vienna. The 13A bus, which used to travel between Alser Strasse and Südbahnhof and has been an important part of my life in Vienna (it has always carried me from my living quarters of the moment to somewhere I wanted to go), now travels between Alser Strasse and Hauptbahnhof. The route is the same, but Südbahnhof was torn down a few years ago and an enormous central train station was built in its place. This opened a week or two ago, witness the sign on the 13A bus.

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Bösendorfer pianos

30 Jul

Somehow I had missed the news that the Bösendorfer building in the 4th district of Vienna with the beautiful concert hall, as well as production floor, was going to be torn down. Last Wednesday I picked up a copy of the free newspaper in Vienna “Heute” and what should I see on page 13 but a photo of the building already half gone and a caption that says the site would provide room for 80 new apartments. The company will go on. There is a new Bösendorfer concert hall now in the Mozart House on Domgasse, and the showrooms with practice facilities and the factory in Wiener Neustadt continue to operate, but somehow it is not the same. Apparently someone in Vienna’s Office for the Preservation of Historic Sites said that the building was a classic case for a commemorative plaque only. Even in Vienna.