Documented
The name, its link to the neighbourhood of the calici and the later renamings are on record, and Ludwig Angerer’s photograph of 1855 shows the stone cross at the Beggars’ Well.
06Places of BUCARESDAVA
Podul Calicilor
The Beggar’s Bridge: a street paved with wooden beams south of the Dâmbovița, named after the poor who lived and begged along it. Today it is Calea Rahovei.
- Shown
- 1704
- Period
- 18th century to 1878
- Status
- Renamed Calea Rahovei
- Location
- Calea Rahovei, Sector 5
01The history
A street named after the poor.
In old Bucharest a pod was not a bridge but a street paved with wooden beams. Podul Calicilor took its name from the neighbourhood of the same name south of the Dâmbovița, home to the calici: the disabled and the very poor, who lived by begging and carting. According to the architectural historian Grigore Ionescu, they were known by first name and infirmity, as in Simion Ciungu, Simion the One-Handed.
Two routes carried the name. The older one started at Hadâm’s Bridge on the Dâmbovicioara, near the church of Sfântul Ilie, and ran along today’s Orfeu, Antim and Cazărmii streets. The newer one left the upper gate of the Princely Court, crossed the Dâmbovița, passed the site of Domnița Bălașa church and headed south-west out of the city. First called Podul Turnului or Podul Craiovei, it appears on the plan of 1770, the oldest map of Bucharest, and it is this route that became Calea Rahovei.
By 1800 the people living on the street, boyars and merchants among them, wanted no link with the beggars, and the name was softened to Podul Caliței. In 1878, after the Romanian victory at Rahova the previous November, it was renamed Calea Rahovei. The bridge that carried it over the Dâmbovița was pulled down in the 1930s, when the river was regulated, and in 1984 the demolitions for the Civic Centre reached its northern end.
- 1770
The route appears on the oldest map of Bucharest.
- 1800
Residents have the name softened to Podul Caliței.
- 1855
Ludwig Angerer photographs the stone cross at the Beggars’ Well.
- 1878
The street is renamed Calea Rahovei.
- 1930s
The bridge over the Dâmbovița is pulled down during the river works.
- 1984
The Civic Centre demolitions reach its northern end.
02Three ways to read it
What is known, what is told, what is imagined.
Legend
No legend about the name has survived; the poor who gave it to the street are documented. Its other nickname, Drumul Florăreselor, the Florists’ Way, came from the flower sellers and gardens along it.
BUCARESDAVA
Chapter IV, “The Beggar’s Bridge”, is set here in 1704, in the Bucharest of Constantin Brâncoveanu.
03Today
What remains today.
Calea Rahovei runs through Sector 5 and is one of the main roads between the Rahova district and the city centre, busy with traffic. A new pedestrian bridge over the Dâmbovița has been proposed near the place of the old one, between Șelari and Sfinții Apostoli streets.