Bucharest Centennial: Pache Protopopescu, one of the best mayors of Bucharest

Romania-Insider.com has started a series of articles about Bucharest landmarks of architecture or history, which have witnessed the last century of what is now the Romanian capital, and noteworthy people who have helped build the Romanian capital as it is today. This project is supported by the Bucharest City Hall through the Public Monuments and Touristic Heritage Administration (AMPT), within the cultural program Bucharest-Centennial.

Check the full series of articles dedicated to the Centennial on Romania-Insider.com here. One of the best and most efficient mayors of Bucharest. That’s how history remembers Pache Protopopescu, who was mayor of the capital more than 100 years ago. He dedicated his entire mandate to modernizing the city. In just four years, mayor Protopopescu managed to complete many of his projects, laying the foundations for the Romanian capital’s modernization in the last 100 years. Romania celebrates in 2018 a century since the Great Union. Emilian Pake-Protopopescu, better known as Pache Protopopescu, was born in 1845. He was the son of an archpriest (“protopop” in Romanian) of the Sf. Gheorghe cel Nou Church, hence his name “Protopopescu.” He attended prestigious universities in Paris, Brussels, and Geneve, from where he returned to the country with the title of Doctor in Law. Before becoming mayor, he was also a law professor at the Commercial School, prefect of the capital's police, lawyer and a Member of the Parliament. Pache Protopopescu became mayor of Bucharest by royal decree in April 1888, when he was 43 years old. His mandate lasted three years and seven months, until December 1891, a short period during which Protopopescu achieved for the city and its inhabitants what few others have succeeded, through economic and social projects. Street modernization was one of mayor Protopopescu’s main priorities. It meant not only the construction of the main boulevards and new main roads but also of the first sidewalks. In 1890, his administration managed to complete the extension of the former Orizontului Boulevard, which divided the capital in two and was later renamed Pache Protopopescu at the insistence of mayor Nicolae Filipescu, which took the helm of the city after Protopopescu. Many streets and sidewalks were paved with stones and boulders and were also even illuminated.