Nice (Frankfurt am Main)

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View from the Untermainbrücke to the Nice

The Nizza , short for Nizza-Ufer , is a park in Frankfurt am Main . The 4.42 hectare park extends for about one kilometer on the north bank of the Main between the Untermainbrücke and the Friedensbrücke . It continues the green areas of the western Frankfurt ramparts on the banks of the Main.

Nice takes its name from its mild microclimate , which comes from its south-facing position, sheltered from the wind, the favorable solar radiation and the river's heat storage facility. As a result, numerous plants of the Mediterranean flora, reminiscent of the gardens of the French Riviera , thrive here . After a redesign by the Frankfurt Green Spaces Office in 2000, frost-hard Mediterranean plants were planted that do not need to be overwintered in a greenhouse.

The Nice is one of the largest public parks with Mediterranean plants north of the Alps.

history

View of the Nice from the Friedensbrücke
Avenue of plane trees on Nice
The Nice in front of the Frankfurt skyscrapers
Nice restaurant
The Nice around 1900
Memorial plaque for Andreas Weber on the wall of the Main Quay

The Frankfurt families Guaita and Loën had owned summer villas with large landscaped gardens in the climatically favored area on the river west of the old city walls since the 17th century . Apart from the ramparts, Frankfurt hardly had any publicly accessible green areas at the time. Until 1858 there was the small island of Mainlust on the site of today's Main bank , which was separated from the former Main bank by the Little Main called Main Arm. The Little Main was used as a winter harbor, but bathing boats have been moored there since the beginning of the 19th century, and bathing establishments opened soon after. Since 1832 there has been an excursion restaurant with a garden terrace and small pavilions operated by the innkeeper Johann Georg Ried, which was considered a Frankfurt visitor attraction. The garden designer Heinrich Siesmayer had already designed this terrace with Mediterranean plants. For the construction of the municipal connection line in Frankfurt am Main , the Little Main was filled in to connect the island with the bank. The restaurant existed until then, was still used as a hospital in 1866, then demolished.

The Frankfurt city gardener Sebastian Rinz (1782–1861) had it designed in 1860 as a park and endpoint of the ramparts so that the former Main Island was not converted into storage . Rinz could no longer finish the park, his last work. His successor and grandson Andreas Weber (1832–1901) took over. Weber redesigned the facility in 1875 and, continuing Siesmayer's idea, carried out the first planting with Mediterranean flora, some of which had to be overwintered in a glass house. Only since then has the facility been officially named Nice . The plane tree avenue that leads through the complex also dates from this time .

After test drillings in the area of ​​the Nice showed sulphurous water, which was suitable as "healing water" (for gurgling throat), the so-called Grindbrunnen was relocated to the Nice area in 1886 from another location in the western harbor area. A pavilion with taps was built to prevent the annoying gurgling noise and spitting on the promenade. An attempt was made to connect the complex architecturally with the city by means of a double staircase. The hope for a brisk influx of spa guests was dashed before the First World War; In the early 1960s, the Grindbrunnen was finally shut down due to groundwater pollution.

In 1898 the Mosler swimming pool opened at Nice , at that time the largest in Germany. It was rebuilt every spring on wooden planks carried by pontoons and dismantled again in autumn. At the beginning of the 20th century, a women's swimming pool was opened on the banks of Nice, the Georg Dannhof'sche swimming and bathing establishment .

In 1921 the expressionist painter Max Beckmann created the picture “Das Nizza in Frankfurt am Main” in Frankfurt.

In 1933 the previous "Moslersche bathing and sports facility" in the west of Nice was converted into a roller skating rink . It was rebuilt in the post-war years and made into a center of art roller skating by the Frankfurt roller and ice sports club , especially in the 1950s and 1960s . Marika Kilius and her partner Franz Ningel trained here during the summer months, as there were no artificial ice rinks at that time. In 1973 it was reopened after renovation. In 1999 the city council decided to remove the roller skating rink. With the demolition in October 2005, one of the last central sports facilities in the city disappeared.

In 1951, in front of the pavilion, a copper equatorial sundial with a diameter of over three and a half meters and a weight of around a ton, which was designed by master watchmaker Lothar M. Loske and manufactured by trainees from the metalworks in Heddernheim , was set up, which was considered the largest in the world.

At the end of the 20th century, the maintenance of the Nice had to be reduced due to a lack of financial means and the facility was increasingly frequented by drug addicts and the homeless. Between 2000 and 2005, Nice was renovated as part of preparations for the 2006 World Cup . As part of these measures, the park was redesigned and provided with hardy Mediterranean plants according to a concept by garden planner Rainer Gesell-Schulte. The sundial was restored in 2004, but the location was moved 1.4 km. The also restored version of the Grindbrunnen finds its new place next to the former Frankfurt pressurized waterworks at the Westhafen. The roller skating rink was demolished in 2005 in order to expand the park. In place of the old pavilion, a new, cubic glass building was erected according to plans by the Frankfurt architects' office Köhler, in which a restaurant-café has been located since August 26, 2004.

literature

  • Tom Koenigs (ed.): City parks. Urban nature in Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt am Main 1993: Campus Verlag. P. 84f.
  • Sonja Thielen: Green Frankfurt. A guide to more than 70 parks and facilities in the city. Frankfurt am Main 2007: B3 Verlag. P. 36ff.

Web links

Commons : Nizza (Frankfurt am Main)  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Louise and Stephan von Guaita Foundation
  2. ^ Mechthild Harting: Franz Heinrich Siesmayer - Architect of Blooming Landscapes ( Memento from June 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), FAZ, April 25, 2007
  3. ^ Sylvia Schenk: Leisure time on the river. The Main as a sports facility , in: Dieter Rebentisch, Evelyn Hils-Brockhoff (eds.): Stadt am Fluss - Frankfurt and the Main , Frankfurt 2004 (= Archive for Frankfurt's History and Art, Volume 70), pp. 271–287, ISBN 3-7829-0559-8 ; Hans-Otto Schembs: The power of the river. A (historical) walk on the Main ( Memento from December 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), in: Senioren-Zeitschrift, Frankfurt am Main, 2/2003, p. 32ff.
  4. ↑ www.nizza-am-main.de ( Memento from January 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ); Anita Strecker: Frankfurt for Beginners: Four hectares of exoticism ( memento from June 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau, November 17, 2008; Entry “Nice” in rhein-main-wiki.de ( memento from June 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), first version from August 10, 2007, 4:20 pm, created by Andrea Kroll, Frankfurter Neue Presse
  5. ^ Frankfurt am Main: Chronicle of the Bahnhofs- and Gutleutviertel Chronik Frankfurt.de Feb. 27, 2020
  6. ^ Website on Nice at frankfurt.de ; accessed Feb. 24, 2020
  7. ↑ The botanists Isaak Blum and Wilhelm Jännicke published a description of the new Frankfurt green areas in 1892, which also pays tribute to Nice: Botanical guide through the urban areas in Frankfurt am Main: Promenaden and Nice in Frankfurt a. M. (with 7 plan sketches), Frankfurt a. M .: Mahlau & Waldschmidt, 1892
  8. ^ Konrad Schneider: Unfulfilled dreams: Bad Frankfurt? - Bad Nied? - Bad Sossenheim? On the occurrence of wells containing hydrogen sulphide and ideas about their use ( Memento of October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), in: Hessische Heimat, 46, 1996, pp. 27–36; Institute for City History, Frankfurt am Main, municipal files, T 1.861, municipal files; 1,673.
  9. ↑ Sabine Hock : Die Lust am Main: City planners want to recapture the river as a central “urban space” , in: Press and Information Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main (Ed.): Wochendienst, No. 31 of August 13, 2002.
  10. ↑ Along with other works by the artist, it was acquired by the Städelsche Kunstinstitut , later confiscated by the National Socialists and shown in the exhibition “ Degenerate Art ”. They later sold it to a Swiss gallery, from which it became the property of the Basel Public Art Collection ( Kunstmuseum Basel ) arrived. Illustration: Max Beckmann: The Nice in Frankfurt am Main , 1921
  11. ↑ Chronicle of the station and Gutleutviertel
  12. ↑ Reinhold R. Kriegler: From Nice to Beautiful View. The Frankfurt equatorial sundial by Lothar M. Loske. (PDF)
  13. ↑ Mechthild Harting: New Mediterranean flair on “Nice” , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 20, 2004
  14. ↑ www.grindbrunnen.de
  15. ^ Mechthild Harting: Urban planning: roller skating rink on Nice demolished . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from October 28, 2005 ( online )
  16. ↑ http://www.baunetz.de/mektiven/Mommunikations_Parkrestaurant_in_Frankfurt_eroeffnet_17853.html
  17. ^ Ingeborg Flagge (Ed.): Köhler Architects. Nice on the Main . Tübingen u. Berlin: E. Wasmuth, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8030-0634-9

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 15.7 "  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 14.4"  E