Latvians (City of Zurich)
The Letten (Zürichdeutsch Lätte [lætːə] ) is an area on the right bank of the Limmat in the city of Zurich . It begins just below the city center and the Platzspitz and extends to Wipkingen . A distinction is made between the Upper Letten and the Lower Letten . The dividing line is the district boundary between Wipkingen and Unterstrass at the Kornhausbrücke . The Letten hydropower plant forms the spatial separation .
The field name Letten is derived from the dialectal word Lätt or from Middle High German lëtte , which means "clay, marl, clay".
Upper Latvians
The Upper Letts was on the right bank of the Limmat to 1989 a station of the SBB at the Lake Zürich right-bank railway line , which opened the 1894th After the opening of the Hirschengraben tunnel , the direct connection from Zurich main station to Stadelhofen , the loop from the sack station over the Letten Viaduct and through the old Lettentunnel was no longer needed. The old line and Zurich Letten station were closed on May 27, 1989.
The “Oberer Letten” swimming pool on the left bank of the Limmat is the venue for the annual Limmat swimming .
When the neighboring Platzspitz park in Zurich was closed to the public, the open drug scene shifted to Upper Latvian in the mid-1990s. The area of the recently closed Letten train station became a meeting place for drug dealers and consumers and the permanent abode of many drug addicts. It was not until the Letten area was cordoned off on February 14, 1995 that the drug situation turned around and the quality of living in Zurich improved. This time the police action was accompanied by supra-regional preventive measures.
As a result, the Upper Letten on the right bank was redesigned into a leisure area: lawns for bathers, beach volleyball fields, improvised bar facilities and restaurants as well as sports fields complete the offer of the two existing river baths in Upper and Lower Letten. There is a bike park under the Kornhausbrücke .
Lower Latvians
The Untere Letten is the public bathing establishment on the right bank of the Limmat in Wipkingen with free entry for everyone. The "air and sunbathing in Lower Letten" was realized in 1909 by the architect Friedrich Fissler in Art Nouveau style. The cultivation in the river took place later. The upper Art Nouveau building from 1910 was replaced in 2005 by the new building with a kiosk building. During the renovation work, the value of the entire complex should be preserved as a witness of the times. The 50-year-old women's wardrobe was repaired inside and out, and a contemporary new building replaces the kiosk building today.
For kayakers there are training routes with slalom poles below the swimming pool and on the left bank.
Old railway line
The old railway viaduct over the Limmat is now open to walkers and cyclists as a connection from Unterstrass to Kreis 5 . The old Lettentunnel was filled in in the summer of 2005 because it was not profitable to use it for any other purpose. In redesigning the site was in particular the protected lizards ( fence and wall lizards consideration taken) that appear on this southern slope: special flooring, gravel and walls offer them habitat. In addition, the embankments are protected as small green islands in the middle of the city.
Latvian railway station
Letten train station gained notoriety as the center of the Zurich drug scene after the Platzspitz was vacated as a drug hangout in 1992 .
Latvian power plant
The Letten power plant was one of the first hydropower plants in Switzerland in 1878 and at that time the heart of Zurich's water supply. At the same time it produced mechanical energy for a silk twisting mill, mechanical workshops, a silk dye works and the town mill. A wire rope hoist carried the mechanical power from the turbines in the waterworks over a 1.2 kilometer long wire rope transmission to the industrial quarter on the left side of the river.
From 1893, the power plant also supplied electrical energy, supplemented by steam energy in arid winters. Today (2017) it produces electricity for almost 7,000 households.
literature
- Martin Bürlimann, Kurt Gammeter: Café Letten - A reading book. A journey through time through the Latvian. Wibichinga, Zurich 2015, ISBN 3-9523149-3-5 .
- Demian Lienhard: I am the one my mother warned me about . 1st edition. Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-627-00260-2 .
Web links
- River baths
- Flussbad Oberer Letten on badi-info.ch
- Flussbad Unterer Letten on badi-info.ch
- Water temperatures of the last 7 days (PDF; 3 kB) measured at the power plant
- Michèle Binswanger : The Platzspitz trauma. Multimedia special from Tages-Anzeiger .ch, May 16, 2014.
- Anita Merkt: When the Letten power plant was still pumping water onto the Zürichberg. In: Tages-Anzeiger , August 4, 2015.
Literature and individual references
- ↑ Schweizerisches Idiotikon , Volume III, Column 488/89, Article Lëtt .
- ↑ Anita Merkt: When the Letten power plant was still pumping water onto the Zürichberg. In: Tages-Anzeiger , August 4, 2015.
Coordinates: 47 ° 23 ′ 10 " N , 8 ° 32 ′ 4" E ; CH1903: 682,742 / 248942