Laimgrube, Vienna — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Laimgrube?

Clay pits gave it the name. The Laimgrube is named for the pits worked on the slope of the Wiental from the 14th century onward, called Lamgrueben in Bavarian with a long a. Its northern reach was larger than the modern district. In the easternmost part the suburb extended north beyond the present Mariahilfer Straße into the 7th district, taking in the ground of the Stiftskaserne and the houses east of it as far as the MuseumsQuartier, which was the imperial court stables.

Statistics draw it differently now. Laimgrube is a Zählbezirk of the official statistics whose boundary does not match the former suburb.

What is the history of Laimgrube?

Pits came before the suburb. Clay was dug on the slope of the Wiental here from the 14th century, and the Bavarian name for those pits, Lamgrueben, is what the place took its name from. It grew as a suburb outside the Glacis.

Laimgrube counted among the oldest Vorstädte of Vienna, running along the Wienfluss with the Gumpendorfer Straße partly forming its boundary against the Mariahilf and Windmühle suburbs and Spittelberg to the north. Incorporation came in 1850. Vienna took it in that year along with the other suburbs, and the ground now falls mostly in the sixth district with a small part in the seventh.

The river went underground around 1900. The Wienfluss was vaulted over and the Naschmarkt built on top, which removed the last obvious line the suburb had followed. What survives is a statistical name.

A Zählbezirk carries it, on a boundary that is not the old one.

Where is Laimgrube?

Laimgrube lies in the east of Mariahilf running from the Getreidemarkt on the former Glacis west along the Wienfluss to about the Eggerthgasse, with a small part north of the Mariahilfer Straße in Neubau.