Bahnhofsviertel (Frankfurt am Main)

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Bahnhofsviertel
District of the City of Frankfurt am Main

Coat of arms

Map

Data

0.525 km²

2,505

4,771 people per km²

60329

069

Incorporation

Area district:

1 – Innenstadt I

City districts:

090 - Bahnhofsviertel

Website

Bahnhofsviertel is a district or Stadtteil of Frankfurt am Main. It developed between 1891 and 1915 on the land of the established Westbahnhof (Western train station)

1 Geography
2 History
3 Infrastructure
4 Life
5 External links

[edit] Geography

Bird's eye view of the Bahnhofsviertel

The bahnhof is scarcely half a square kilometre larger in area than the Altstadt making it the second smallest borough of the city. The longest border line is just short of a kilometre long. Almost trapeze shaped, this borough lies bewteen the Alleenring to the west, Mainzer Landstraße in the north and the Anlagenring to the east. In the south the river Main forms a natural border. Adjacent boroughs to the west are Gutleut and Gallus around the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), in the north Westend-Süd, in the east Frankfurter Innenstadt and to the south on the opposite side of the Main Sachsenhausen-Nord. The borough lies in the central part Frankfurt's inner city.

[edit] History

The developing Bahnhofsviertel, 1893. The unbuilt area shows the grounds of the western stations of five years previously. The new street network is already finished.

The area between Frankfurt city wall and the field of the gallows had hardly been built-up by the early nineteenth century. Only farming estates were to be found in this area. Near to the city gallows and as an unprotected site outside the city walls it was left along for a long time. As industrialisation came in the city walls and its gallows were torn down to be replaced initially by villas with large gardens. The technical advances were especially noticeable here. When in 1839 the Taunusbahn was taken into the still nassauisch town of Höchst am Main, the first station was constructed on the Anlagenring. The track of the Taunusbahnhof ran through the middle of the district of today's station quarter. Later the stations of the Main-Neckar and Main-Weser-Bahn were added to that. The western stations were in enterprise together until 1888, after which time they were replaced by the new central station of Frankfurt, which was situated another 500m further west. Thus the railway tracks also became redundant, and the year 1889 was able to begin with a dividing up of the area. As there was still no significant residential zone existing in 1891 the area became the central site of the international electrotechnical exhibition, which was led by Oskar von Miller. In the meantime, the large civil land development in the style of the Wilhelminian period was placed under monument protection. In the second world war the quarter was not so strongly bombed as the inner city, but nevertheless many buildings were destroyed, particularly in the north. In the time of the occupation by the american armed forces the district developed an active night life.

[edit] Infrastructure

The Nizza on the banks of the Main

Through its central area the Bahnhofsviertel was well connected to the traffic network. The Hauptbahnhof, which no longer even belonged to the borough, offered a connection to the regional and long distance lines. For local traffic the Bahnhofsviertel is connected by a Tram route on Münchner Straße to lines 11 and 12 (see Local traffic in Frankfurt am Main). The U-Bahnhof (underground station) Willy-Brandt-Platz and the S-Bahn station Taunusanlage are also easily reachable. The well-known meaning of Kaiserstraße has been lost among the street traffic, travel from the Alleenring to the Hauptbahnhof is no longer possible through the Kaisersack. Instead the main traffic vein today is Gutleutstraße, which flows into the theatre tunnel and offers a connection to the old part of town. The roads, arrange in chessboard-like fashion, make orientation easy. The wide east-west streets are constructed like boulevards and communicate the charm of a big city. Numerous nineteenth century buildings have survived through the second world war and became chaste residential houses in the 1950s and 1960s, whilst several supplemented skyscrapers. The best known of these are the Silvertower and the Gallileo at the Jürgen-Ponto-Platz (named after the murdered president of Dresdner Bank, Jürgen Ponto), the Skyper and the Gewerkschaftshaus in Wilhelm-Leuschner-Straße. The latter was built in 1931, (the architect was Max Taut), and was the biggest skyscraper in the city. The best known of many hotels in the Bahnhofsviertel, the InterContinental, is also in Wilhelm-Leuschner-Straße.

There are no big, central parks in the little borough, like there are in the other parts of Frankfurt, but in the south of the quarter lies the Mainufer, one of the most beloved green areas of Frankfurt. In 1860 a silted branch of the Main, the Kleine Main, was filled up and the offshore island Mainlust was connected to the main bank. On this land Sebastian Rinz, the city gardener, laid out a green area with mediterranean vegitation which was soon named Nizza in common speech. The Frankfurt families Guaita and Loeen had already possessed large landscaped gardens in the climatically favoured area of the river west of the old city walls since the seventeenth century.

[edit] Life

Münchener Straße, a view in the direction of Willy-Brandt-Platz.

The red light district of Frankfurt am Main at night

Against commonly held opinion the red light trade occupies only a small part of the station quarter which is concentrated mainly along Taunusstraße and in parts of its side roads.