Plac Jana Henryka Dąbrowskiego, Warszawa

Plac Jana Henryka Dąbrowskiego is a downtown Warsaw square shaped by a former palace garden, a market, war damage and rebuilding. Its planted enclosure contains a fountain with a child-and-crocodile sculpture, while the nearby Szlenkier Palace serves as the Embassy of Italy.

Plac Jana Henryka Dąbrowskiego occupies a compact block in downtown Warsaw, bounded by Rysia, Szkolna, Kredytowa and Jasna streets. This square is named after Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. At the fountain basin in the planted square, notice the child grappling with a crocodile.

The figure is a bronze reproduction of Stanisław Jackowski’s sculpture, placed here before the war and returned to the square in nineteen sixty-one after repair. This open space began in seventeen thirty as a garden belonging to Franciszek Bieliński’s palace. When Bieliński founded the Bielino jurisdiction, its market was laid out here and lined with modest houses designed by Jakub Fontana.

A later garden gave the place its former name, Green Square, while a market known as Pociejów traded nearby until it moved away. The buildings around you carry layers of that changing city. The Szlenkier Palace on Kredytowa was built as an exceptionally distinguished residence and now houses the Embassy of Italy.

War destroyed or burned the surrounding buildings, yet the planted square endured. That survival makes the fountain’s returning child and crocodile a small, vivid emblem of Warsaw’s renewal.