As late as the mid-1970s, Łasicka Street was one of the more attractive corners of Bolesławiec. Its beauty was largely due to the solid and, in their own way, attractive pre-war buildings, set back from the roadway by a wide strip of flower-filled home gardens that lent the street additional charm.
Nor could anything be faulted about the carefully maintained detached houses built here during the Gierek-era construction boom, provided, of course, that one did not take into account their flat roofs, which at the time were mandatory under the relevant regulations.
Unfortunately, this architectural idyll was disrupted at some point. The first harbinger of the street’s impending bad times was a greengrocer’s shop built at the intersection with Krótka Street. Its owner must have enjoyed some special favor from the municipal authorities of the time, since he managed to obtain perpetual usufruct of the land beneath the shop—a privilege that at that time was granted exclusively to people building detached houses.
After some time, another, though entirely respectable architecturally, commercial building was erected in one of the aforementioned home gardens. Then came a genuine escalation of ugliness in the form of a corrugated-metal shack placed on the lawn at the intersection with Kilińskiego Street, followed by further monstrosities: one at the intersection with Zygmunt August Street and two in the gardens. This destroyed all the charm of the green strip separating the roadway from the line of buildings.
For now, knock on wood, the building invasion on Łasicka Street has been halted, but traces of the predecessors of the current municipal architect’s carefree activity remain. In my opinion, the greatest architectural eyesore is the greengrocer’s shop standing in front of the church façade, whose removal the undersigned has already called for several times, including at, for example, the penultimate session of the City Council last year. Naturally, fulfilling this demand would entail certain costs (expropriation of the perpetual usufruct holder, compensation for the building, and so on). I nevertheless believe that some action in this direction is essential, especially since this ugly greengrocer’s shop conceals a building that participants in last autumn’s Karkonosze Architects’ Meeting KASA ’92, held in Jelenia Góra, recognized as the most interesting project of 1992.
I also think that the parishioners who attend this beautiful church would not refuse financial assistance to cover the costs of possibly moving the greengrocer’s shop to another, more suitable location.