‘Łódź was waking up, the first yelling factory whistle pierced the quiet of the early morning, then in all parts of the city others began to spring up ever more raucously and bawled in hoarse voices like a choir of monstrous roosters crowing their metal throats the call to work. The huge factories, whose long black bulks and slender chimney necks loomed in the darkness, in the fog and rain they were slowly waking up, belching flames of fire, exhaling clouds of smoke.’
Władysław Reymont, The Promised Land

Łódź’s rise to industrial prominence in the second half of the 19th century saw the city transform from a sleepy backwater into a gritty metropolis bursting with red brick factories and a horizon crowned with smoking chimney stacks. While the rank and file were squashed into blackened tenements their bosses lived the a life of indulgence, pampered in extravagant palaces. It’s these mighty industrialists who made Łódź what it is today, and a memorial commemorating three such figures can be found at the lower end of Piotrkowska (C-3). It’s outside McDonald’s you’ll find a statue of Izrael Poznański, Karol Scheibler and Ludwik Grohman seated around a table signing an agreement. The empty seats next to these three make it possible to sit down with a burger and boast to your friends you once dined with the most powerful men in town.