Initially, the street was a dirt road between municipal arable lands. Its course was mostly set in the 1860s and 1870s, during the establishment of a new part of the city – the so-called Wiązowa district. It began at what was then Długa Street (now ) and led in a direction roughly southwest toward the city limits near what is now . In June 1891, it was extended to the section of , laid out the year before, and since then, it has started there, measuring about 1.8 km in length. Around 1893, it was likely named Szulc Passage (or Avenue), after the names of landowners Paweł and Otto Schulz (Szulc). On the map drawn by Władysław Starzyński between 1894 and 1896, it already appeared as Szulc Passage (Пассажъ Шульца). The garden of Otto Julius Schulz's heirs, originally covering the area of today's properties at numbers 2–6, was transferred in July 1891 to the brothers Herman and Ryszard Gehlig, owners of the steam brewery "Bracia Gehlig" at 7/13 . In September 1895, electric street lighting was installed on the passage. At the same time, the sale of vacant plots along the passage for factory and tenement construction began. The avenue was paved around 1905, when the city authorities allocated 14,000 rubles for the task. During the German occupation of the city from 1915 to 1918, it was called
Schulz Zeile. In 1919, the name was changed to 1 Maja Avenue. Several schools also had their headquarters on the avenue: at number 11, the private
coeducational kindergarten of Ida Janowska; at number 12, Nusen Sendowski's
cheder; at number 20, the private Jewish school "Orchot-No-am II"; at number 25, the Polish girls' Primary School No. 23, directed by Maria Kędzierska; at number 37, the private Jewish school "Jesodej Hatora" No. 4; at number 50, the Polish coeducational Primary School No. 2, directed by Ludwik Gidyński; at number 52, the male elementary school "Szkoła Polska No. 6" for children celebrating the
Shabbat, directed by Szymza Sznapper; at number 87, Public Primary Schools No. 11 and No. 15. A health center of the "Kropla Mleka" society, established in 1904 as the first section of the Warsaw Hygiene Society, operated at number 22. , who as a child (from 1927 to 1939) lived with her parents and sister at 71 1 Maja Avenue, in a tenement house near the barracks of the 28th Kaniowski Rifle Regiment (owned by a Jewish landlord, Moszek Zdanowski), described the avenue in a March and April 2006 interview as "a very beautiful street with rows of magnificent chestnut trees". She also recalled that "many officers lived nearby. And many Germans". After the war, the pre-war name was restored, which was convenient for the communist authorities, though it was originally introduced by the city's pre-war authorities linked to the
Polish Socialist Party, commemorating the
International Workers' Day celebrated on May 1. Between 2011 and 2013, the avenue ranked 86th among the 362 Łódź streets with the highest number of traffic accidents. In this period, 14 accidents occurred, injuring 18 people, including 6 seriously. In the 2015 Łódź
participatory budgeting, a project called "Restore the Glory of Szulc Passage – Reconstruction of 1 Maja Avenue between Wólczańska and Gdańska Streets" was submitted. The project's proposals sparked extreme emotions among residents, ranging from admiration to firm opposition. The project received 2,138 votes, which was not enough for it to be qualified for implementation. In 2016, as part of the "Green Polesie" program, the city planned to transform part of the avenue (the section between Wólczańska and streets) into a garden street. Work on the reconstruction of the initial section of the avenue (between Wólczańska and Gdańska streets) began on 10 August 2017 and was completed in late May 2018. By the end of April 2020, the reconstruction of the section between Gdańska and
Stefan Żeromski streets was finished.
Famous residents •
Julian Tuwim – 5 Szulc Passage, flat 13, 1896–1902 or 1903 •
Irena Tuwim – 5 Szulc Passage, flat 13, from 22 August 1898 or 1899 to 1902 or 1903
Chronology of street name changes == 1 Maja Avenue in film ==