Károlyi-kert, Urban park in District V, Hungary
Károlyi-kert is a public park of 7,625 square metres in Budapest's 5th District, bordered by Ferenczy István, Magyar and Henszlmann Imre streets and the Károlyi Palace. Its layout combines geometric baroque beds with winding English-style paths. A tall green lamppost with a multi-sided lantern stands on the lawn beside a pale gravel path and wooden benches with curved metal supports.
The Károlyi family acquired the palace and garden in 1768 and kept them until 1929. A baroque garden was laid out in the late 18th century, partly in the then-new English landscape style, and the palace and grounds were remodelled in Classicist style in the early 19th century. The flood of 1838 badly damaged the garden. After 1848–49 it flourished, with exotic plants in the greenhouse, gazebos and a tennis court for the family and guests. Financial trouble nearly led to the palace's demolition for tenement blocks in the early 20th century; instead it passed to state ownership in 1929 and opened as a public park in 1932.
The garden's name comes from the Károlyi family, who owned palace and grounds from 1768 to 1929. Chess players gather at a shaded chess spot, and two fenced playgrounds with a separate sandbox serve children. The park opened as a public garden in 1932, and its layout mixes geometric baroque beds with winding English-style paths.
The garden has five entrances besides the two from the palace side, but only four are in use. It lies within a 5-10 minute walk of Kálvin tér, Ferenciek tere and Astoria, and a MOL Bubi bike-share station stands directly in front of the palace. A drinking fountain is on site, and the public toilet is a cast-iron, tram-like Beetz structure kept as an industrial monument.
The country's one of the oldest white mulberry trees grows in the park. The garden also holds a public toilet built like a railway carriage: an iron-framed Beetz-type "green tram", an industrial monument, once a László-type waterless, oil-deodorised urinal.
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