History
Anyone taking tram 71 from the 1st district to Zinnergasse in the 11th is following the old Roman road from Vindobona to Carnuntum. Its lifeline is Simmeringer Hauptstraße, which crosses the 11th district. Simmering is one of the oldest settlement areas of Vienna. It was settled more than 3,000 years ago. Around 400 A.D. the Celts intermingled with the native population. In about 15 A.D. the Kingdom of Noricum fell under Roman rule. The Römerstraße also dates from this time. In the following centuries Teutons, Slavs and peoples from the Balkans and the East migrated through the Viennese area. There are 2 Avar graves at the Simmering district museum showing original burials from the 8th century.

Our first documentary evidence "Simanningen" is from 1028. Whether it really does refer to today's Simmering is however uncertain. Unequivocal references to the present day Simmering are to be found only after 1130 in the records of Klosterneuburg Abbey. One of Vienna’s oldest churches, Laurenzkirche, also provides evidence that Simmering did already exist in the early Middle Ages. In the 19th century Simmering began to be industrialized. At the time many factories and workshops were established and the Wiener Neustadt Canal was built in order to transport coal at lower cost from the Wiener Neustadt coal pit to Vienna. There developed also a kind of “Riviera”. The revolution was a turning point and in 1848 Simmering developed from a village into a fast growing independent municipality. Simmering became one of the most important developing districts of Vienna.

Even today many nationalities and cultures meet up here and along with the surviving traditional enterprises they characterize the rich diversity of business life along Simmeringer Hauptstraße. You can conveniently combine shopping on Simmeringer Hauptstraße with a visit to the wine tavern Hochmayer or the district museum or the many other sights of interest.

Places to see

The Altsimmering parish church (St. Laurenz Kirche) on Knobelgasse is in the old city center of Simmering.

Its earliest documentary record from 1267 makes it one of the oldest churches in Vienna. During the first and second Turkish sieges of Vienna it was badly damaged and in 1746 rebuilt in its present form. The church is right at the Simmering cemetery.

Since St. Laurenz, the old parish church, lacked the capacity to accommodate the growing population, planning for the Neusimmering parish church at the Enkplatz started in the 1870s.

However, it was not until October 1907 that the foundation stone was laid, and after about three years of construction, the church designed by the architect Johann Schneider was solemnly consecrated on December 7th, 1910. The altarpiece originally from Klosterneuburg Abbey was fashioned by Leopold Kupelwieser.

Karl-Borromäus Church on the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery, with its almost 2.5 million square meters the second largest cemetery in Europe, and thanks to its many graves of honor and generously laid out grounds one of the most important sights of the city) is an Art Nouveau jewel.

After a visit to the Zentralfriedhof it is a good idea to try one of the legion “Schnitzel” (escalope) creations at Concordia Castle and to reflect on the morbid affinity for death of the Viennese in the ghoulish charm of candlelight.

Neugebäude Palace was a splendid one with equally splendid garden grounds which Emperor Maximilian II started to build in 1569. However it began to deteriorate soon after his death. From 1744 to 1918 it served the military. The Simmering crematorium and the attached urn grove were completed in 1922 on a large part of the garden grounds. Only parts of the former palace remain today. In 2002, the grounds were opened to the public; they have been used as an events venue ever since.

The “elfte Hieb” (11th district, of a working class character) as Simmering is sometimes popularly referred to, has, however, also been the home a great number of prominent personalities, among them the resistance fighter and social democrat Rosa Jochmann, who grew up and worked here in a number of factories in the nineteen tens and twenties.

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Categories: Shopping, Wienerisch