The demolition of Petőfi Csarnok (aka PeCsa) will start within a few weeks – it served the capital as an event and concert venue through good and bad times for 31 years. No matter how unsightly it may be nowadays, it deserves to be remembered, so we took a walk around City Park’s sprawling complex that stood empty for a long time now, while looking for the ghosts of former performers and guests ranging from Nirvana to Björk to Black Sabbath. This is not a tearful farewell, yet for many of Budapest’s music fans, the loss of PeCsa with be the end of an era.

The carelessly discarded empty coffee cups and bottles, the wires hanging from the ceiling, and the garbage accumulated at the open-air stage are all telltale signs of imminent demise. Petőfi Csarnok opened with a concert of the Hungarian rock band Karthago on April 27th, 1985, and it was the only youth center in the Magyar metropolis for a long time, hosting film clubs, exhibitions, and a roller-skating club – but it earned its greatest fame as the city’s “citadel of rock”. Over the years this was the site of indoor and outdoor concerts by local bands and world-famous performers like Nirvana, Björk, Faith No More, Black Sabbath, Placebo, and Kasabian; many locals especially remember June 20th, 2005, when huge crowds were lying in the grass surrounding PeCsa to listen to the open-air Jamiroquai concert from outside of the venue’s wooden walls.

However, time was not kind to this once-popular club, as its facilities eroded considerably within a couple decades; the first rumors about PeCsa’s closing started to swirl around it in 2011. In 2013 there was news that it could be renewed, but the Liget Project plans to renovate all of City Park changed that, making the demolition plans official. PeCsa said goodbye to its audience with a final Csillagfény (meaning “Starshine”) disco on October 23rd of 2015, and with a rock-concert marathon on the following weekend.

The legendary PeCsa Flea Market also had to go; they found their new home at Lőrinczi market. The capital’s most popular second-hand market was operating since May 1st, 1985, and opened for the last time on November 12th – the piles of detritus that we saw around the open-air stage during our visit was probably left behind by the departing vendors.

The Museum of Transport’s exhibition on aviation history was upstairs, and it was only open from spring to fall as there wasn’t enough money for heating the upstairs area – when we were there, it was warmer outside than inside.

The new National Gallery will be built on the grounds of PeCsa, based on the designs of SANAA, a Japanese architectural firm – this building, contrary to popular belief, will be smaller then its predecessor, as it will occupy 9,095 square meters instead of the 10,729 square meters that was taken up by PeCsa.