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At the Pest end of the Lanchid, Roosevelt ter is blitzed by traffic, making it difficult to stand back and get a good view of the Gresham Palace on the eastern side of the square. This lovely Art Nouveau edifice was commissioned by a British insurance company in 1904, and is named after the financier Sir Thomas Gresham, the originator of Gresham's law, that bad money drives out good. His portrait high up on the facade, and the interior arcade and stained-glass windows by the Art Nouveau master Miksa Roth, are unlikely to be visible until renovation work on the building has finished, and it begins a new lease of life as the Four Seasons hotel. Statues of Count Szechenyi and Ferenc Deak stand at opposite ends of the square, the former not far from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia ; no admission), which was founded after Szechenyi pledged a year's income from his estates towards its establishment in 1825 - as depicted in a relief on the wall facing Akademia utca. The Nobel Prize-winning scientist Gyorgy Hevesy - discoverer of the element hafnium - was born at Akademia utca 3, across the road. While the Lanchid and the Academy are tangible reminders of Szechenyi's enterprise, Deak's achievement in forging an Ausgleich (Compromise) with the Habsburgs was symbolized by the crowning of Emperor Franz Josef as King of Hungary in 1867. Soil from every corner of the nation was piled into a Coronation Hill, atop which he flourished the sword of St Stephen and promised to defend Hungary against all its enemies - a pledge that proved almost as ephemeral as the hill itself. Eighty years later, the square was renamed Roosevelt ter in honour of the late US president - a rare example of Cold War courtesy that was never revoked.
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