A mythical creature, perhaps a dragon, guards the staircase at Hernád utca 19 in the 7th district of Budapest. The house has stood since 1895, and during that time, the creature has witnessed countless events. I couldn’t help but imagine the stories it could tell. So I did some research and discovered some of the events that it may have seen over the years

In the early 1910s, the creature saw children joyfully visiting Ms. Antal Mayer’s balloon shop, in a time when balloons were not yet mass-produced. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, it also smelled the delicious aroma of coffee from the ground floor merchant, and the sweet scent of chocolate from József Kern’s candy factory, where traditional Christmas candies called Szaloncukor were made.

But not all memories were happy ones. In 1925, the creature witnessed the sorrow of 17-year-old Ilona Mandl, a pharmacy employee who attempted to take her own life. In the 1932, it also saw Ms. Mihály Takács and her two children tragically expelled from their home due to unpaid rent.

The Spatz family’s struggles were also etched in the creature’s memory. It saw Jozsef Spatz open his paintbrush factory in the 1920s, selling brushes to amateur and professional painters as well as house painters. But in 1944, his shop was forced to close due to his Jewish origins, and his family was sent to the ghetto that same year. Jozsef disappeared in 1945, his fate unknown.

One of the more recent events that the creature may have witnessed was a robbery that took place on the staircase in 1996. A woman was attacked and robbed, and her valuable jewellery was stolen.