Dlouhá Street

Dlouhá Street, together with náměstí Míru and the area around the Church of St. Filip and St. James has the oldest structures in the city. Until the end of the 19th century, the street closed the town from the east, but above all it copied the traditional trade route connecting Zlín with Uherský Brod and Holešov. It originally led south of the church of St. Filip and St. James at today's intersection of Osvoboditelů and Divadelní streets. At present, it starts at Tomáš Baťa Avenue from where it heads to the northeast and ends at the bridge over Dřevnice. The name of Dlouhá street is first mentioned in the town records as early as 1558. By decision of the council in 1887, the street was divided into Upper Dlouhá Street (from the church to Zarámí Street) and Lower Dlouhá Street (from Zarámí Street to the Cigánov Bridge). After the founding of Czechoslovakia, on November 12, 1918, the municipal committee proposed to change the name to Wilson's Street in honour of the President of the United States, but the new name was not adopted, and in 1925 the municipal council officially confirmed the return to the name Dlouhá. Shortly after the end of World War II, on May 12, 1945, the newly-established local national committee decided to rename the street as Major Murzin's Avenue after the commander of the 1st Czechoslovak Partisan Brigade, Jan Žižka. In 1971, one of the streets in the newly built Jižní Svahy housing estate was named Dlouhá. The last change occurred in 1991, when Murzinova returned to its historical name Dlouhá and the street in Jižní Svahy was renamed Luční.

We can identify several important places in the Dlouhá Street of the 19th century. The spiritual, social and educational centre of the city formed around the Church of St. Philip and James, a school (built in 1857), a city hospital (built in 1867) and a rectory across the street (the building was restored after fires in 1819 and 1849). The crossing with Hlavní Street (now Rašínova) symbolised a kind of centre point of the street with its wooden, later stone cross and well. And last but not least, there was a significant space between Dlouhá, Kvítková and Zarámí streets, which almost had the character of a small square. The toll collection preserved in the name of the Na mýtě pub (later known as Na rožku) happened here. Between the millrace in the lower part of Dlouhá Street and the river, there were only a few scattered wooden buildings.

The construction of Tomáš Baťa Avenue as the new backbone of the city caused a fundamental change in the character of the street in its southern area. The establishment of this avenue towards the east in 1933 was accompanied by the demolition of the school (1932), a group of houses in front of the church, including the town hospital (1933), and the construction of the family house of lawyer Evžen Šaller (1932) and the department store of Mr. Javorský (today's Archa). Gradually, other parts of the street were also structurally transformed, when wealthier owners replaced single-storey houses with multi-storey buildings. The most significant realisation of this period is the functionalist apartment building and department store of Eduard Pelčák (1932) on a narrow plot between Rašínova, Dlouhá and Zarámí streets. The construction of the railway underpass significantly improved the flow of the traffic (1936).

But Dlouhá Street went through the most radical transformation since the early 1960s. In 1962, the building of the State Bank of Czechoslovakia, redesigned between 1995 and 1997 to its present form as Komerční banka, redefined the corner with today's Tomáš Baťa Avenue. With the construction of a distinctive theatre building (1967) in the place of the former Šaller Villa the present form of the southern entrance part of Dlouhá Street was also defined. With the exception of a few older houses, the rest of the street was totally redefined by construction in the 1970s and early 1980s. At that time, interesting dynamic panel residential houses with services grew up under the intersection with Zarámí Street (1976) and especially the adjoining Fruit and Vegetable House, House of Footwear, and Grocery House (1978–1982) in the street front between Tomáš Baťa Avenue and Kvítková Street. Pedestrian comfort was improved by the underpass (1986) connecting these buildings with Rašínova Street. Not only náměstí Míru, but also Dlouhá street was transformed by the last major implementation so far, namely the Zlaté jablko shopping centre and a capacity multi-storey car park across the street (2007–2008), which completed the transformation of this part of the street into a compact unit.

 

 

DV