Pantelimon. For many Bucharest residents, the name evokes an image of a working-class neighborhood filled with gray apartment blocks, pharmacies, slot machine halls, and pawn shops lining the main boulevard. But Pantelimon means much more than that. Beyond the brightly repainted façades lies a fascinating history that begins in the 18th century — in a time when the plague ravaged Bucharest — and stretches to the present day, when the rooftops of former socialist factories have become canvases for urban art. 

From the “Outer Market” to the Refuge of the Plague-Stricken

This is Pantelimon — the gateway to the capital from the east, a place where poverty and creativity, disease and rebirth, socialist concrete and contemporary color have all met and mingled.

Few people know that Pantelimon’s history begins under the shadow of suffering. In the summer of 1734, another plague epidemic swept through Bucharest. Chroniclers of the time described it as a “terrible and merciless disease” that brought death and fear. 

To isolate the sick and stop the contagion, Prince Grigore Ghica II decided to build, “on the waters of the Colentina, near the spring known as the old woman’s fountain,” a hospital for poor patients, including a special section for plague victims.

A decree from October 12, 1735, states that the people — especially the poor — suffered greatly from the lack of a place where the sick could be treated. Thus was founded the Pantelimon Hospital, next to a monastery built “in honor and praise of the great martyr and healer Panteleimon.” 

It was the first medical institution in Wallachia specifically dedicated to contagious patients — a kind of lazaretto designed “so that others would not be infected,” including caregivers.

From that time onward, the name of Saint Panteleimon, the healer, became tied to this eastern corner of Bucharest, giving rise to what we now know as the Pantelimon neighborhood.

From Monastery and Hospital to the “Outer Market”

The monastic complex of Pantelimon, which included the hospital and the church, was once a spiritual and medical landmark of premodern Bucharest. The monastery was built on a small island formed by the Colentina River, and around it grew a modest settlement inhabited by soldiers and craftsmen — tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, weavers, locksmiths — people of modest means living at the edge of the city.

Records from the 18th century show that the population of the Pantelimon district consisted mostly of soldiers and artisans. By 1831, during Wallachia’s first modern census, there were 970 middle-class residents, 36 servants, and 6 clerics, living in 223 houses.

As Bucharest expanded, Pantelimon became known as the “Outer Market”, a peripheral but lively area filled with the sounds and colors of daily life — workshops, traders’ cries, and later, the clang of trams running toward the city center.

The First Electric Trams and the Path Toward Modernization

By the late 19th century, Bucharest was rapidly modernizing, and Pantelimon was slowly being integrated into the urban grid. In 1890, mayor Pache Protopopescu ordered the construction of a major east–west boulevard connecting Cotroceni to Piața Iancului. 

Five years later, Bucharest had its first true modern thoroughfare, and by 1893, new “ring boulevards” — such as Ștefan cel Mare and Mihai Bravu — had been laid out, marking the city’s boundaries.

That same year, City Hall granted a concession to an Italian company to build the first electric tram line in Bucharest — Line 14 — linking Cotroceni to the Iancului area. The tram’s eastern terminus was near the old Pantelimon district, symbolizing how the city was stretching outward, absorbing its former outskirts.

Communist Demolitions and the Birth of the Working-Class Neighborhood

The 20th century brought dramatic transformations. The small houses of the interwar period, with their gardens and courtyards, were demolished in the 1960s to make way for socialist apartment blocks. 

Around them rose factories, industrial plants, and massive agro-industrial complexes, turning Pantelimon into a working-class “sleeping district”, home to tens of thousands of industrial workers.

The communist regime also destroyed the historic monastic complex. In 1987, the Pantelimon Church was demolished overnight in August, replaced by the Lebăda Complex, a luxury restaurant and hotel. 

Along with the church, the Ghica family tombs were obliterated — including the funerary monument of Prince Alexandru Ghica, a four-ton marble sculpture guarded by a majestic eagle, described by historian Nicolae Iorga as “the most beautiful funerary eagle in Romania.”

Only two old churches survived the demolitions: Fundenii Doamnei Church and Mărcuța Monastery, the last witnesses of old Pantelimon.

The “Circus of Hunger” – A Spectacle of Shiny Poverty

The ultimate symbol of socialist Pantelimon remains the so-called “Circus of Hunger”, officially the Agro-Industrial Commercial Complex Pantelimon. Inaugurated by Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1987, the enormous North Korean–inspired building was intended to centralize Bucharest’s food distribution — a sort of “food mall” during a time of strict rationing.

In reality, it was a vast, empty marketplace — a monument to scarcity. The shelves were bare, the self-service restaurants stood deserted, and cold air swept through the echoing halls. It was, as locals recall, “a spectacle of poverty with a glossy façade.”

After 1989, the building turned into a chaotic bazaar crammed with cheap Chinese merchandise. Years of neglect made it a safety hazard. Only in 2021 did renovation work finally begin, and the makeshift stalls were relocated to a new building nearby. 

Today, Pantelimon’s “Circus of Hunger” remains the only one in Bucharest to have preserved its original architecture, a unique reminder of the communist era’s failed grandeur.

From Factories to Malls and Slot Machines

The fall of communism brought another wave of change. The factories that once defined Pantelimon — the Postăvăria Română textile mill, the Parachute Factory, the Glassworks — were demolished or privatized. In their place appeared malls, supermarkets, and office buildings.

Meanwhile, Pantelimon developed a reputation as the neighborhood of slot machines, with gaming halls on every corner, alongside pawn shops and pharmacies. 

Along Șoseaua Pantelimon, neon signs and colorful façades coexist with rows of rehabilitated apartment blocks, creating a landscape that reflects Romania’s post-communist contrasts.

“Giants of Pantelimon” – A Rebirth Through Art

Amid the grayness, art found a way to bloom. In 2009, the organization Make a Point — founded by documentary filmmaker Mădălina Roșca, film critic Viorica Bucur, and visual artist Alma Cazacu — set out to bring culture to Pantelimon.

Their most ambitious project, “Giants of Pantelimon,” launched in 2016 and completed in 2017, turned the rooftops of former factories into the largest urban art gallery in Eastern Europe: 6,000 square meters of painted roofs, 5 kilometers of colored threads, and 100 kilograms of paint reshaped the skyline.

Renowned street artists from across Europe came to Bucharest to create enormous rooftop murals — portraits symbolizing hope, memory, and identity.

Today, these vibrant artworks can be admired from the Water Tower of the former Postăvăria Română, now transformed by Make a Point into the Art Tower, a cultural space hosting exhibitions, film screenings, and community events.

The New Face of Pantelimon – Between Past and Future

Though often overlooked, Pantelimon has a surprising cultural and historical depth. Its landmarks include Malaxa Hospital, Sticlăriei Park, the Firefighters’ Academy, Parcul Florilor (home to the socialist-realist “Statue of the 1907 Peasants’ Uprising”), Mărcuța Monastery, Piața Delfinului, the Ostrov Peninsula on Lake Fundeni, and, of course, the Circus of Hunger.

Parcul Florilor is considered one of Bucharest’s most romantic green spaces, while Mărcuța Monastery — one of the city’s oldest churches — still preserves its 18th-century charm, with faded frescoes and timeworn walls.

In recent years, guided tours and cultural programs organized by Make a Point have begun to change how people perceive Pantelimon, turning it from a forgotten periphery into a neighborhood with identity and creative vitality.

From Plague to Paint – The Story of Survival

The history of Pantelimon is, at its core, a story of survival. From the plague hospital of 1735 to the demolished monastery of 1987, from the socialist housing estates to the painted rooftops of today, Pantelimon has mirrored Bucharest’s own evolution — through illness, poverty, industrialization, decline, and rebirth.

The saintly name that once marked a place of quarantine now defines a community that has endured and reinvented itself. Pantelimon has always been a space of margins — but also of resilience. It was here that Bucharest’s hip-hop culture was born in the 1990s, here that workers built the socialist dream, and here that urban artists now paint the future.

When you enter Bucharest from the east, along the old road from the sea, Pantelimon greets you with its gray buildings, glowing neon signs, and the smell of grilled meat from the markets. But look closer, and you’ll discover a neighborhood that has been a plague refuge, a workers’ stronghold, a monument to socialist hardship, and now an open-air art gallery.

Pantelimon is not just a district of contrasts — it is a living lesson in urban endurance. Between the ruins of factories and the colors of its painted roofs, between plague and street art, between history and modernity, lies the story of a Bucharest that never dies — it simply transforms.

We also recommend: “The Story of Bucharest’s Berceni District: The Poor Village, the Forbidden Love, and a Passionate War”