"New Vilnius" or "Naujoji Vilnia", 8 kilometers from the center of Vilnius, was originally a separate city founded in the second half of the 19th century and was incorporated into Vilnius only in 1957. Behind the former defense wall of Vilna, the city began to expand rapidly in the last decade of the 19th century, but in the early 1860's brick and more densely concentrated wooded houses stretched only as far as Vingriai Lane and Pylimas and Raugyklos Streets. However, at the end of the 19th century, new buildings and streets sprang up in the city's SW urban area called Naujamiestis (the New City) marked by Smolenskas Street as the end of Naujamiestis district with rather wide and straight streets that divided the suburbs into regular rectangular sections of boring brick houses and small and miserable wooden huts. No trace of the synagogues remains. Krekenava Regional Park. Naujamiestis, the modern city centre and the most fashionable street now with flashy shops, is a pedestrian precinct in daytime and a transit street (Gediminas Prospekt - High Street) in the mornings. The street starts at the Cathedral and ends at the Parliament. [March 2009]
CEMETERY: Two cemeteries exist in a wooded area outside Naujamiestis, the smaller one belonging to Karaites and the other Jewish. Anyone interested in these cemeteries, the town, or photographer may contact Mark N. Brown, Providence, RI [June 2003]
Two of the three Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius were destroyed during the Soviet era; the remains of the Vilna Gaon were moved to the remaining one. [January 2010]