An exciting journey to the Bahnhofsviertel: Only until Sunday, April 7, the exhibition "Bankers, Brothels and Bohème" is on display at the Institute for Urban History in the Carmelite Monastery. The really very interesting show illuminates in 24 stations the multifaceted history of Frankfurt's station district from the Middle Ages to today's debates about the gentrification of the district. Especially in this point the exhibition offers fascinating insights: For this development is not a new phenomenon. As the tour makes clear, the history of the Bahnhofsviertel has been marked by constant real estate and land speculation. Again and again, the former buildings had to make way for new concepts of use: summer houses for noble villas, these for tenements or commercial buildings, and these in turn for hotels, office space or bank towers.
In the exhibition, the history of building and technology, drug problems and the red-light milieu stand on an equal footing with style-defining buildings and institutions, branches of industry and protagonists. Thus, the show also focuses on the former Westbahnhof, the construction of the Hauptbahnhof, the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in 1891, the planning for the noble residential and business district, as well as prominent buildings such as the Schumanntheater, hotels or the Gewerkschaftshaus. The rise and fall of the fur trade, long-established shops, multicultural business world and bars, challenges and successes of the drug problem, red light milieu and nightlife, bank towers and depopulation of the district are also taken into account. Again and again, the exhibition invites visitors to meet protagonists of the neighborhood and little stories.
The exhibition is open Monday through Friday from 10 am to 6 pm and on weekends from 11 am to 6 pm. Admission is free.
For the last time, there will be an opportunity to take part in a public tour of the exhibition with curator Markus Häfner on Sunday, March 31. Meeting point for the tour is the foyer of the Institute of City History, Münzgasse 9, at 3 p.m. Participation costs six euros, reduced three euros. Registration is not necessary. Reservations are not possible.
