Hilly and wooded area around the Great Pohulanka was popular for strolling. Next to the Great Pohulanka, in today‘s Kosto Kalinausko st., there was Small Pohulanka. Until the mid-19th c., there were few buildings on these streets, surrounded by sandy hills. As the city was expanding, new buildings arose here, forming a neighbourhood of New Town. The newcomers to this area were mostly those practicing prestigious professions, wealthier locals. Many famous Jews lived here as well. On the other side of the street from here at the beginning of 20th c. lived the banker and philanthropist Izrael Bunimovich. Further up the hill resided famous Jewish historian and political thinker Simon Dubnow, world-famous writer Romain Gary, and Max Weinreich, one of the founders of YIVO, who’s apartment served as the first office of the Institute. To this day on this street lives literature and theatre critic, one of the founders of the Open Society Foundation in Lithuania, Holocaust survivor professor Irena Veisaitė (b. 1928). The other part of the New Town stretched from Great Pohulanka street to the train station. Intensive trade took place on Naugarduko st., various production companies, including Bunimovich chocolate and candy factory, were also based there. Today on 10/2, Naugarduko st. you can find Tolerance Centre of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum. A part of the New Town between current day Smolensko, Naugarduko, Švitrigailos and Kauno streets was more blue collar. It was an industrial site with a variety of factories and workers’ lodgings. It is believed that more than half of the population there was Jewish. The buildings were much simpler than on Pohulanka – one-storey, mostly wooden, non-significant stylistically. The buildings on Great and Small Pohulankas were more reminiscent of large nobility estates, with courtyards and gardens. There were also apartment buildings with few, but very large suites, with 4-5 bedrooms (e.g. Dubnow recalled his large, five-bedroom apartment on Pohulanka). More than two thirds of these apartments had their separate bathrooms and/or toilets, quite a luxury for the time. The crowning moment of the New Town as a modern Jewish settlement space was the opening of the Vilnius Choral Synagogue in 1903. The neighbourhood was dotted with Jewish prayer houses, schools, some hospitals, saunas, shelters.