Takeplatz
The Takuplatz is located in the Cologne district Neuehrenfeld in the district Ehrenfeld .
It is part of the " Ehrenfeld history trail ". As its station 23, a corresponding plaque was attached to one of its houses.
Plant and architecture
The Takuplatz is almost triangularly bordered by the Iltisstraße in the northeast and the Takustraße in the northwest. The delimiting road in the south, as part of the Takuplatz, also bears its name. A tram turnaround loop, which has now been disused, with two rows of old robinia trees forms the actual shape of the square, a semicircle, within the course of the street. The track of the turning loop was removed in February 2008.
On the square is a windowless, low-rise building that houses facilities for power distribution by Stadtwerke RheinEnergie as well as, near the center of the square, and a well-known stall . The center of the square itself has been designed as an area for pétanque since the late 1990s . It is regularly played by the Ehrenfeld Boule Club and the Boulogne Boyz . Outside around the former turning loop, the space is partially used for parking spaces.
The Takuplatz is surrounded by four-story residential buildings. The houses belong to a housing association and were built at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unlike these no-frills buildings, the first three houses on Takustraße stand out with their more elaborate and multi-colored original brick facades.
There are two restaurants around the square, a bakery and a hairdresser.
Naming
The names of Takuplatz and Takustraße, like those of Iltisstraße and the neighboring Lansstraße , refer to the Chinese Boxer Rebellion in 1900 . The German gunboat “Iltis” was deployed under its captain Lans , who commanded the German navy's attack on the Chinese Taku forts . The vernacular calls the area around Takuplatz due to the origin of the name “Chinese-Veedel”, in High German “Chinese quarter”. The name was given in 1913 , when the former Ehrenfeld workers' housing association built the houses around Takuplatz. These houses are still the property of the legal successor, the non-profit housing association Ehrenfeld eG. In keeping with this name, Neuehrenfelder founded the carnival association “Ihrfelder Chinese” (Ehrenfeld Chinese) in 1971 , whose members dress up as Chinese for carnival events.
Debate about colonial references
At the end of 2009 the naming of some Neuehrenfeld streets and squares according to places and people in German colonial history was discussed in the vicinity of the Ehrenfeld district representation and in the local media . Among them are names after Hermann von Wissmann , Karl von Gravenreuth and also the names of the Chinatown, including Takuplatz. At the initiative of the Greens , various measures were debated, from which the local politicians hope to distance themselves from atrocities committed by German colonial rule. There were suggestions for a differentiated labeling of the explanatory boards, but renaming of the locations was also discussed. Similar initiatives have existed in Berlin-Dahlem since the 1970s , where the renaming of the Lans-, Iltis- and Takustraße, which has existed there since 1905, is being discussed, but so far these places have been signposted to provide information. In August 2011, a new sign with explanations of the history of the name and German colonial policy was presented at Cologne's Takuplatz, which initially ended the debate.
In 2020, the discussion about naming and signing came up again in the course of the disputes over racism in Germany.
The place in World War II
During the Second World War , a civil underground bunker was built in the center of the square to protect against aerial bombs . Even today there are essential elements of this bunker under the square, as demolishing the massive concrete structures would have been too costly. Despite the catastrophic consequences of the Allied bombing raids in Cologne in World War II, houses at Takuplatz were only damaged, but not destroyed.
From 1942 there is a report about the formation of a Bündische youth group , which also met at Takuplatz. Such groups, as well as the better known Ehrenfeld group , were banned by the National Socialists . Confrontations with Nazis as well as arrests and mistreatment by the Gestapo are also known of the Neuehrenfeld group .
traffic
The Iltisstraße that runs past the square is one of the busy streets in Neuehrenfeld, as it forms the access road for many residential streets in the district and is also used as a quick connection between the districts of Bickendorf / Ossendorf and Neuehrenfeld / Ehrenfeld. Takustraße and especially Takuplatz have less traffic and are traffic-calmed at 30 km / h .
In 1926 , the track for the tram lines to Neuehrenfeld and Ossendorf via Iltisstraße was completed. Takuplatz was given a stop of the same name and a turning loop that led all the way around the square. From 1958 to 1961 and the beginning of the 1970s, this temporarily served as the final stop for tram line 13, which ran on the Gürtel, and as a final stop for tram line 5, which continued to Ossendorf. From 1974, line 13 was routed over a new route to Cologne-Mülheim. The loop was then only used for special and emergency trips and was shut down in January 2004.
Until mid-July 2010, the stop on Iltisstraße was served by tram line 5 of the KVB in the direction of Cologne city center and Cologne-Ossendorf. Since this line is operated with high-floor light rail vehicles, temporary 30 cm platforms made of metal profiles were built in November 2004. In the course of the reconstruction of the route to the Stadtbahn with elevated platforms, the stop was abandoned and replaced by a new building at the newly built Lenauplatz stop 300 meters south , which was completed on December 12, 2010.
The square is not used by bus lines, in the 1960s it was the final stop of the then bus route 37, which went to the Ford works.
literature
- Johannes Maubach: Across Ehrenfeld, Ehrenfeld History Path (Part 2). Self-published, Cologne, 2002.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johannes Maubach: Across Ehrenfeld, Ehrenfelder Geschichtspfad (Part 2). Self-published, Cologne, 2002.
- ↑ Questionable colonial rulers by Heribert Rösgen in: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger from November 25, 2009, online ( memento of the original from March 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 25, 2010
- ↑ The name of the anti-Semite should disappear by Mathias Raabe in: Berliner Zeitung of February 18, 2002, online , accessed on February 25, 2010
- ↑ What once happened to Fort Taku , in: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 25 August 2011
- ↑ Local time from Cologne | 06/12/2020. June 12, 2020, accessed June 15, 2020 .
- ^ Die Edelweisspiraten in: NZZ Online from March 20, 2004; online , accessed February 25, 2010
- ^ Website of the Kölner Verkehrsbetriebe ( Memento of the original from September 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 15, 2010
Coordinates: 50 ° 57 ′ 40 ″ N , 6 ° 54 ′ 57 ″ E