Prater Stars and Stations

Although you may not have ever given it any actual thought, the name Pratersten is not random or accidental. It is in fact next to the Prater. The spot takes on the shape of a star (stern) by virtue of the 7 streets that all meet there. It has officially had this name since the 19^th century. Decades after Emperor Joseph II had Praterstern built in 1780/1781. Prior to this, the area had been home to the Prater bridge. It crossed a Fugbach, a small arm of the then-still-unregulated Danube.

Because the Danube was unregulated and unpredictable, the area around Praterstern didn’t really start to develop until the 19^th century. The area gained importance with the opening of the Nordbahnhof, the Habsburg Monarchy’s largest and most important train station, in 1838. The station was an impressive construction of towers and turrets. Those spanned an entire city block, housed a statue of Anselm von Rorschild in its vestibule. It counted as one of the city’s most magnificent buildings.

The station was so important during the monarchy because it directly connected Vienna with Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. With the fall of the monarchy and the loss of those lands in 1918, the Nordbahn also went into decline. It remained in operation until the 1940s. During the Second World War, it was heavily damaged by bombs. It was unfortunately never restored. Instead, it stood crumbling until the 1960s when it was ultimately demolished.

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