Quarter (Bremen)

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Location of the district

In Bremen , parts of the Ostertor and Steintor districts are colloquially referred to as “The Quarter” .

geography

Ostertorsteinweg near Goetheplatz, on the right the junction with Mozartstrasse
Ostertorsteinweg between Ulrichsplatz and Sielwallkreuzung
The Sielwall crossroads (seen from the Sielwall )

The border between the two districts is the Sielwall - Am Dobben road . The street names refer to the ditch called Dobben , which was filled in in the 19th century , which branched off from the Weser at a sluice (lockable dike passage) at the southern end of the Sielwall and at the former grinding mill (at the current intersection of Rembertistraße - An der Weide - Parkallee ) merged into the Kuhgraben , which began before the Parkallee was built on the southern edge of the Bürgerweide. In the west, the Ostertorviertel is bordered by the ramparts , the former fortification ring around Bremen's old town.

The street name Ostertorsteinweg refers to the former east gate of the city of Bremen, where this street began. In front of the stone gate refers to the stone gate that no longer exists, consisting of the stone tower watchtower and a drawbridge over the Dobben at the current Sielwall intersection, where the streets Am Dobben , Sielwall , Ostertorsteinweg and Vor dem Steintor meet. The intersection is the geographical and cultural center of the district.

The street Ostertorsteinweg - in front of the stone gate is mainly characterized by buildings from the 19th century and is u. a. known as a bar, restaurant and strolling mile, where there are many shops, specialist shops and specialty shops. There are also many small shops and restaurants in the streets of Fehrfeld , Am Dobben and Auf den Häfen (with the pub mile Auf den Höfen ). In the quarter there is a small red-light district with Helenenstraße , a side street of the Steintor .

history

The current development of the quarter was mainly created on the occasion of the city expansion from the middle of the 19th century . Characteristic of this construction period are the many old Bremen houses , especially those in the side streets .

Many building plots were acquired by craftsmen, who often built entire streets. The Ostertorsteinweg / Vor dem Steintor street that crosses the area emerged as the main shopping street with metropolitan trains.

Mozart route

Until the 1950s, the Ostertorviertel, which was little affected by the destruction of World War II, was a popular residential area in Bremen. Many old, sometimes magnificent building facades still bear witness to earlier prosperity. Then the city began to settle poorer sections of the population there as part of an equality program, whereupon better-off groups moved away.

In the 1960s, traffic policy planning began in Bremen for the construction of a "tangent square", the eastern part of which is an approximately 120 meter wide aisle along Mozartstrasse with connections to the Rembertikreisel on one side and to a new bridge to the Neustadt to Kirchweg on the other should be - the "Mozart Route". These plans were intended to keep the Bremen city center largely free of traffic, in particular to and from federal highways 6 and 75, and to pay tribute to the expected increase in traffic volume. A building of up to 28 floors was planned along the tangents.

These first considerations were given concrete form in November 1971 by the Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen in a redevelopment concept for the Ostertorviertel. The SPD's old town club could only prevent immediate implementation because it was able to present an alternative concept at the same time.

The subsequent struggle of the residents of the district against Mozart Street lasted for several years. The Social Democratic Bremen Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, with the support of the SPD parliamentary group and Neue Heimat as the planned developer, fought against the route, especially the SPD local association Altstadt. The area of ​​the local SPD association at that time included both the old town and the Ostertorviertel. As early as 1969, the SPD local association Altstadt had asked the population about urgent problems in the district in a large survey. The results were rather surprising for the questioners. Of great importance were rather regional issues such as the area renovation planned by the Senate, which was rejected by the residents of the Ostertorviertel with over 95%. There was strong popular support against the Mozart route.

As a result of this survey, the SPD local club Altstadt changed its political work. He concentrated more on questions of local politics and founded the non-party Ostertorsanierung working group in the local club of the old town of the Bremen SPD.

The protest was organized through this working group and, connected to it, through the involvement of completely different citizens from the district, regular publications by the old town local association and objective cooperation between all parties in the Central Advisory Board . After years of discussion, there was a special meeting of the SPD parliamentary group on November 4, 1973, which lasted almost the entire day and in which only the point “Mozart route” was dealt with. At this meeting there was a majority of 26 to 24 votes in favor of the Mozart route.

This narrow result led to further discussions within the SPD leadership; the decision was withdrawn the next day. The SPD parliamentary group, which has its own majority in the Bremen citizenship, voted unanimously with eleven abstentions against the Mozart route and thus saved one of the oldest and most popular residential areas in Bremen today. To date, the failed transport policy intentions of the Mozart route have not been compensated for by any alternative planning.

On the part of the SPD leadership in Bremen, after the end of the "Mozarttrasse", in order to prevent massive resistance from the grassroots and especially from the old town district in the future, the SPD subdistrict Bremen-Stadt, which had been a single subdistrict, was divided into two subdistricts (west and east) . The separation of the sub-district also resulted in a division of the SPD local association Old Town, which consisted of the areas Old Town and Ostertor. Most of the active members of the local SPD association lived in the area of ​​the Ostertor. The organizational changes were later reversed. Since the end of the 90s there is again the uniform sub-district of Bremen-Stadt and the local association is now (2018) Altstadt-Mitte. It includes the districts of Altstadt, Bahnhofsvorstadt and Ostertor.

On January 16, 2009, the "Bremen Award for Building Culture" was presented to the Easter Gate Renovation Working Group in the Upper Town Hall Hall, which consisted of the following individuals: Dieter Decker, Olaf Dinné, Hanna Ehmke, Hans-Jürgen Kahrs, Ursel and Thomas Kerstein, Wolfgang Linder, Uwe Martin, Karsten Schwerdtfeger, Gert W. Settje, Hans Martin Sixt, Ulrike Schellpeper and Herbert Wulfekuhl.

The reason for the award of the award stated: “The award goes to a group of Bremen citizens who defended themselves 35 years ago against the construction of the Mozart route and thus saved the Ostertor from the threatened destruction of the city. It has thus prepared the ground for a new planning culture in Bremen. "

Recent developments

In the 1970s, the Ostertorviertel for was redevelopment area and the Bremische Society for urban renewal, urban development and housing (in short: Bremische ) was redevelopment agency . Thanks to the public co-financing of renovation work as part of the urban development subsidy, many homeowners have been motivated to undertake extensive renovation measures on the building fabric, which has been dilapidated for years. The streets and squares were also renovated. The Ostertor and Steintor area became very attractive as a residential area, especially in student and alternative circles. The residential buildings in the Milchquartier (Mozartstrasse / Bleicherstrasse / Beim Paulskloster ) were built from 1977 to 1980 according to plans by the architects Mensinga and Rogalla (Hamburg) as part of the redevelopment of the area.

In the 1980s, the Sielwall crossing emerged as a point of accumulation of the Bremen drug scene and became one of the focal points of the district. It attracted nationwide attention with the New Year's Eve riots in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

For several years there has been a strong tendency towards social upgrading in the “quarter” through the establishment of designer boutiques, trendy bars and other relevant infrastructure, while at the same time alternative approaches are being displaced. The majority of the neighborhood residents accept the colorful juxtaposition of designer boutiques, second-hand shops, kebab shops, organic weekly market, almost open drug trade, advice and action center, red light district, etc., since gentrification is much slower than e.g. in Hamburg-St. Georg or Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg is advancing.

Culture

Cultural center warehouse

In terms of culture, the institutions in and on the outskirts of the district, the Kunsthalle Bremen , the Wilhelm-Wagenfeld-Haus with the Bremen Design Center , the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus and the Theater am Goetheplatz , Goetheplatz No. 1–3, play a role. The gallery scene is also at home here: The Barbara Oberem , Ohse and K ' galleries are located here . The Lagerhaus cultural center offers space for many young initiatives. Near the Sielwallkreuzung are the jazz club Purple Owl and the Cinema im Ostertor and as another cinema just five hundred meters, the Schauburg .

Once a year, always at the end of August, until a few years ago, the quarter festival took place on the two main streets through the quarter, the Ostertorsteinweg and the street Vor dem Steintor , during which they tried to make the specifics of the quarter recognized and to Fun fair atmosphere ”.

At the Osterdeich on the Weser there is a wide strip of meadow on which the Breminale , a now nationally known cultural festival, has been taking place since 1990 - with the exception of 2007 .

Every year the Bremen Samba Carnival moves from the market square in the city center along the Ostertorsteinweg into the district. With over 1,800 showmen in 111 groups (2015) and around 30,000 visitors, it is the largest Samba Carnival in Europe.

Listed buildings

Easter Gate

Stone gate

literature

  • Heribert Rau: The battle for the "Mozart route". From a successful citizens' initiative in Bremen ; Ed .: Citizens' Association for the Eastern Suburbs; Bremen 1982
  • Wendelin Seebacher , Dieter Cordes: Ostertor ; Ed .: Bremen Society for Urban Renewal, Urban Development and Housing, Bremerhaven 1987, 215 pp.
  • Olaf Dinné : 15 years SPD in Bremen, then green. A contribution to the recent history of Bremen ; Klartext-Verlag, Bremen 1979
  • Olaf Dinné (Ed.): 68 in Bremen. back then ; WMIT-Dr.- und Verlag, Bremen 1998, ISBN 3-929542-10-2
  • Bremen Society for Urban Renewal, Urban Development and Housing (Ed.): Final report of the Bremen Society for Urban Renewal, Urban Development and Housing on the implementation of urban redevelopment in Bremen Ostertor / Remberti 1973 to 1985 , Bremen 1985
  • Editor Kassiber (Ed.): Das Viertel ; Bremen 1992

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 22 "  N , 8 ° 49 ′ 23"  E

Web links

Commons : Quarter  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Schwarzwälder , 2002: Das Große Bremen-Lexikon Edition Temmen, Bremen, Volume 1., p. 200
  2. ^ SPD local association Altstadt-Mitte
  3. ↑ 2. Bremen Award for Building Culture , text on the website of the Bremen Center for Building Culture
  4. ↑ Georg Kirsche: Creeping appreciation in the quarter. NORDSEE-ZEITUNG, May 5, 2012, accessed on November 7, 2013 (newspaper article).