Arne-Karlsson-Park, Public park in Alsergrund district, Vienna, Austria.
Arne-Karlsson-Park is a public park in Vienna's Alsergrund district with multiple recreation areas and sports facilities. The space includes a football pitch, basketball court, skating area, children's play zones, and open grassy sections for general use.
The site at Währinger Straße 45 held a medieval hospital, Johannes in der Siechenals, and a 1679 plague pit for about 1,000 victims. Between 1858 and 1860 the city built the Bürgerversorgungshaus there to plans by Ferdinand Fellner; it closed in 1927 and was demolished by 1929. The park opened in 1932 as Bürgerpark and was renamed Arne-Karlsson-Park by council decision on 10 July 1947, after the Swedish Rädda Barnen Vienna director shot dead at a border checkpoint that year.
The park serves as a gathering place where neighbors and families spend their days walking, exercising, or relaxing outdoors. You will see residents enjoying the grass areas, children playing together in the designated zones, and people using the facilities throughout the week.
The park lies at the junction of Spitalgasse and Währinger Straße, with tram lines 5, 33, 37, 38, 40, 41 and 42 passing nearby. The air-raid shelter in the middle of the park is closed as a rule; it opens only occasionally, when current event organisers include it in guided tours.
Beneath the park lies a 1941 air-raid shelter of 40 chambers, built for 300 people but often used by up to 700. Its above-ground entrance building, now covered in graffiti, was renovated in 2008/10 and handed to the Alsergrund district museum; the shelter is opened occasionally for guided tours.
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