Bockenheimer Landstrasse
| Bockenheimer Landstrasse | |
|---|---|
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| View of the Bockenheimer Warte | |
| Basic data | |
| place | Frankfurt am Main |
| District | Westend-South |
| Created | In the Middle Ages as a country road, in the 19th century as a main road |
| Connecting roads |
Grosse Bockenheimer Strasse (east), Adalbertstrasse (west) |
| Cross streets | Opernplatz , Kettenhofweg , Mendelssohnstraße, Bockenheimer Warte |
| Places | Odina Bott Square |
| Buildings |
BHF-Bank-Hochhaus , WestendDuo , Rhein-Main-Center , Triton-Haus , Bockenheimer Landstraße 102 , KfW |
| Technical specifications | |
| Street length | 1.3 km |
The Bockenheimer Landstrasse is an important downtown street in Frankfurt am Main . It runs from Opernplatz (the former Bockenheimer Tor ) through the Westend to Bockenheimer Warte .
The street is the central east-west axis of the south-west end. With a length of around 1,600 meters, it is significantly shorter than some of the other well-known “country roads” in Frankfurt; it is more of an inner-city boulevard than an arterial road. There are numerous banks and other service providers as well as some consulates in Bockenheimer Landstrasse . The former US Consulate General on Siesmayerstrasse , a few steps away , was the target of numerous demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the 1970s . The main entrance of the palm garden, which opened in 1870, is also just a few meters down a side street .
The city's first tram line operated as a horse-drawn tram along Bockenheimer Landstrasse in 1872 . In 1986 this tram line was shut down, at the same time the underground line C of the Frankfurt U-Bahn started operation. Today the street is accessed through the three underground stations Alte Oper , Westend and Bockenheimer Warte .
The Bockenheimer Landstrasse in the 19th century
At the beginning of the 19th century, Bockenheim was a rural place with about 500 inhabitants and about half an hour's drive from Frankfurt's gates. The electoral Hessian town was connected to Frankfurt by a road, which at that time was already lined with tall chestnut trees, lime trees and acacias as well as inns, the Bockenheimer Landstrasse. When Bockenheim was granted town charter in August 1822 , this was combined with the freedom from forced labor and the complete freedom of trade for Christians and Jews.
In the decades that followed, Bockenheim developed into an important industrial location that expanded its own network of city streets and in 1852 became a station for the Main-Weser Railway . The industrial development of Bockenheim reached as far as the Frankfurt boundary, the former Frankfurter Landwehr , which ran north-south at the Bockenheimer Warte. Although a few factories had also sprung up in Bockenheimer Landstrasse (e.g. a machine factory at No. 175, a foundry at No. 137), the site developed on both sides as a bourgeois villa district and residential area, which Frankfurters call the Westend .
Individual factories on Bockenheimer Landstrasse initially had to give way to the pressure of residential development, but in the 1990s the Frankfurt authorities found the Bockenheimer Landstrasse to the west of Palmengartenstrasse to be suitable for an industrial site. It was populated by nearly a dozen factories. On the Bockenheimer side of the Frankfurter Landwehr, the industrial companies concentrated on the star-shaped streets towards the Bockenheimer Warte.
After the incorporation of Bockenheim in 1895, the main concern of the Bockenheimers was not the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, the direct connection to Frankfurt, but initially the expansion of their own road network and a direct road connection to the new Frankfurt main station . The Frankfurt building code of 1893, however, had foresightedly designated new factory districts on the Frankfurt district, the location of which was based on the traffic situation that had arisen from the construction of the West Harbor and the main train station. So it stayed with the small factory center that had developed in the chain courtyards in the Westend. In 1888 Brönner also liquidated his paint factory located near the courtyards. When the Bockenheim sewage flowing through the Kettenhofgraben to the Main ceased to spread its bad vapors through the sewage system and sewage treatment plant, the Westend, which was created on the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, expanded to the boundary with its noble residential buildings on the vacated site.
Zoological Garden
The first Frankfurt zoo was located on Bockenheimer Landstrasse . In 1858 the Frankfurt Zoological Society rented the Leer'schen Garten in Westend (west of today's Unterlindau street), and on August 8th, when the approval of the local police authority was available, which permitted "keeping wild animals in suitable containers" The first exotic animals were exhibited in 1858. Years later, both the inner city location and the lack of space prompted the founding company to move to the Pfingstweide, which was then outside the city, in what is now the Ostend district . On March 29, 1874, the zoo moved across the city to its new domicile.
The Bockenheimer Landstrasse in the Frankfurt urban warfare
At the end of the 1960s, Frankfurt had a social democratic city government that had little sympathy for the magnificent buildings of the upper-class West End and its residents. The district was already classified as a future commercial area in advance of valid development plans, and many beautiful houses had been bought by business people who were speculating on an increase in value. They were now empty. At the beginning of the 1970s, there was a significant lack of affordable housing in Frankfurt. Therefore, a number of empty houses were occupied by students, apprentices and workers, including in 1971 the house at Bockenheimer Landstrasse 93, which belonged to Ali Selmi, and the “block” on the corner of Bockenheimer Landstrasse and Schumannstrasse. It consisted of the four houses No. 111-113, as well as Schumannstrasse 69-71, which belonged to Ignatz Bubis .
The squatters first negotiated usage contracts with the owners and lived in the houses. However, after the city of Frankfurt had passed new zoning plans and granted demolition permits, evictions were carried out in February 1974, which were combined with violent protests. The police used water cannons and batons against the violent Protestants, who also threw cobblestones and Molotov cocktails .
Alexander Kluge , who at that time lived across the street from the "Block" in Schumannstrasse, made a film about the demonstrations that took place because of the eviction ( every stone that was torn off is thrown back by us ) ( In danger and the greatest need he brings Middle way death ). After the “block” was demolished, several years passed before the site was rebuilt, but no longer with representative residential buildings, but with modern commercial buildings.
In the middle of Bockenheimer Landstrasse, Odina-Bott-Platz opposite the Triton-Haus is reminiscent of Odina Bott, the spokeswoman for AG Westend, in which the opponents of urban planning at the time organized themselves.
The Bockenheimer Landstrasse as an extension of the Frankfurt banking district
The area around Taunusanlage and Neue Mainzer Straße was understood to be the Frankfurt banking district until the 1960s. With the sustained influx of banks to Frankfurt and the increasing expansion of office space, more and more banks moved to the streets from there, and the banking district "spilled over". On the one hand, it enlarged along Mainzer Landstrasse towards the south-west, where today City-Haus I on Platz der Republik forms the visible end of the current bank district. On the other hand, bank buildings were increasingly spreading along Bockenheimer Landstrasse towards the northwest, which led to the disputes between property speculators and the political left discussed in the previous section. Although some old villas were rescued (some of them are now used by banks), branches of UBS (No. 2–4, Opernturm), BHF-Bank (No. 10) and Creditplus can be found on Bockenheimer Landstrasse Bank AG (No. 13), Bank of China (No. 24), Berenberg Bank (No. 25; Corealcredit Bank resided there until 2007 ), KfW Bankengruppe (Westarkade Palmengartenstraße 5-9 / corner of Bockenheimer Landstraße), the Nordea Bank (no. 33), the Barclays PLC Bank (no. 38), the Banco Santander (no. 39), the China Construction Bank (no. 51), the Korea Exchange Bank (no. 51), the Tokai Bank (No. 51–53) and the World Bank (No. 109).
Use by the university
Due to the proximity to the Bockenheim campus , the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University uses (e) some buildings on Bockenheimer Landstrasse. The scientific institute of the Alsace-Lorraine in the Reich was housed at Bockenheimer Landstrasse 127. The Bockenheimer Landstrasse 76 now serves the International Studies Center of the University.
Cultural monuments
For the cultural monuments on Bockenheimer Landstrasse, see the list of cultural monuments on Bockenheimer Landstrasse .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stadtvermessungsamt Frankfurt am Main (ed.): Portal GeoInfo Frankfurt , city map
Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 6.6 ″ N , 8 ° 39 ′ 42.7 ″ E