Emblematic of the transformation of Budapest public space of recent years at its very best, the spacious, jazzy "Ditch Club" is right in the heart of downtown -- on what used to be the drab parking lot of the city's communist-era bus station and was later a hollowed out, sorry-looking abandoned construction site (for the National Theater, which ended up elsewhere) dubbed "the ditch." On a fine summer evening it seems that all the under-30 faces for a mile around are here, sitting about with plastic cups of wine or beer on the broad flight of steps leading down into the "ditch" or dipping their feet in a big pool of water right above the club -- that is, if they're not actually inside listening to live jazz on the club's small stage.
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