A bridge over a troubled quarter: Bad Homburg
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- A crazy idea to solve a problem: in 1901, the newly elected mayor of Bad Homburg, near Frankfurt, realized that to attract residents who would drive the town's progress and modernization, he needed to build a new residential area for them. But where to put the road that would get them from there into town?
Music:
"On My Way Home"
by the 126ers
UA-cam Audio Library
"Hot Swing"
by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com
Creative Commons Attribution licence
Some maps created using data from OpenStreetMap
openstreetmap.org
Chapters:
00:00 This is Bad Homburg
00:39 The problem
02:06 The solution
03:08 Permission and construction
04:21 Renovation and reconstruction
05:23 The legacy endures
06:05 How to get to Bad Homburg
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Very interesting- things you somehow don't learn if your German and live in Germany. Beautiful wordmanship BTW! One factual error though: Ernst Ritter von Marx wasn't born 1898 but in 1869. I got suspicious when you said "one day before his golden wedding".
Oh my, how did that happen? I have the correct date in all of my notes. I mean, he may have been a genius, but not "elected mayor at the age of 3" genius.
If one opens a book on local history, one can easily learn all the things.
@@dorisw5558 Yes, but everything nearby seems so boring, commonplace aka "the grass is always greener on the other side".
@@Bayerwaldler shame on us all, isn't it? 🤔 Lots of great places to learn about just around the corner.
Sad and true, there are no german youtubers who talk abiut that stuff.
Fun fact: Before historians found out that the old Roman name of the mountain range was "Taunus" the whole range was just called "Die Höhe", so it is not just the fact that Bad Homburg lies in front of a mountain range but that "Höhe" was literally the name of the mountain range.
Das ist ja die Höhe.
Another fun fact: Latin "mons taunus" means the "fenced mountain" (old germanic "tuna" > "Zaun"); in German this is also call "einfrieden", hence the name of the city "Friedberg". It is unclear, though, whether the Romans referred to the whole ridge as "taunus" or just to the hill where Friedberg is located.
@@mizapf So "Friedhow" means "fenced court"?
@@KaiHenningsen Friedhof (cemetary) indeed originally meant fenced or enclosed backyard (of the church). Friede is also "peace", so in folk etymology it is the yard where people "rest in peace". Obviously, the German word for "peace" rather means that you put a fence around your territory.
@@mizapf Wasn't the Taunus shielded or crossed by the Roman Limes fortification (see fort Saalburg) which separated the Roman Empire from the wild barbaric free Germans, in younger times known by the Britisch as huns? A quite solid fence.
As a German, I greatly enjoy this channel because it shows me stuff about my home country that I didn't know, and I enjoy the external perspective! In this particular case though, I can't decide if the title may be an even greater creative achievement than the video itself
I agree with every word. Though I didn't notice the brilliance of the title before I read your comment.
As a German it realy hit's me when ever I learn about yet another great person, that we killed or we made to flee from the very country that they themselves served. He was a German Knight, the whole town seemed to like his work, the Kaiser approved of his work, yet he would have gotten killed anyways. Sorry it just doesn't explains it self to me and I can't stop thinking about it.
@@TremereTT Imagine where Germany would have been today without the minds that were lost. Building a bridge to another solar system maybe!
I'm from Frankfurt, have been to Bad Homburg many times, also crossing that bridge, and I never knew.
The Russian Orthodox church is there because German (also Italian and French) spa towns were literally _flooded_ with Russian nobility in 19th and early 20th century. You just read some Turgenev or Dostoevsky, You will see. Actually, lots of great Russian literary works were written in towns like this, hence it would be a really interesting video for You to make! And thanks a lot for the present one!
Bad Homburgrad stories
Yes, indeed.
I can't speak to the church in Bad Homburg in particular, but I am pretty certain that those in nearby Wiesbaden (also spa town) and Darmstadt (residence of the Grand Dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt) owe their existence largely to the fact that tsar Nicholas' II. wife Alexandra was a daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the family were visiting often. The tsar seems to have thought it a good idea to "bring his own church", and since the local emperor happened to be his cousin, there were no political obstacles to overcome either. Both churches were built sometime during the 1890s.
You teach me more about my hometown, than i‘ve ever learned. Greetings from the Taunus
As an immigrant, I know much more about the places I where I lived in Germany than about my hometown. As you grow, you see everything as a given, and pay little interest. When you move, especially to another cultural environment, everything looks exotic, and you want to learn more.
I'm a big fan designing bridges to look timeless. The modern brutalistic bare concrete architecture looks shite after just a couple years.
As a minimalist I hate covering up anything.
@@l3p3 New construction out in nature, minimalist looks just fine and the style of this bridge would, in my opinion, look awful. However, in an area as that depicted here, I'd argue it's exactly the other way around.
Sadly this is often the case.
I do not like buildings that are so uniform that they could be everywhere.
Why is everyone throwing sh*t at brutalism? Okay, it invites for uniform looks and there is nothing special about tower block estates, but you can actually do great stuff with concrete. I'd go so far to call the Torres Blancas in Madrid, Habitat 67 in Montreal or the facade of Hotel Uzbekistan in Tashkent design icons. And luckily important ones are already or become preserved and protected.
At least you don't want "to tear all of them down". I have read this already. That's like I'd say "Picasso's paintings are ugly - let's burn them all!" I personally think they are ugly, but nevertheless they are art and cultural heritage. And so are brutalist buildings, which by the way are the architectural counterpart to cubism in painting, which Picasso pioneered.
Building a big old bridge to help middle-class people avoid the old town also speaks to the class character of the area, I suspect.
These days German old towns tend to be well-kept and touristy, but until the war they were typically low-status working class quarters with poor sanitation and infrastructure.
I thought about that as well, probably the rich people didn't want to get their feet dirty and standing literally above the lower class - man what a great idea.
I wonder why city centers seem to be always either where poor people live or the most prestige area. In Europe the centers are usually best while in the US many city centers contain the poor, although there's a tendency to gentrification into high income, so no target for middle class before and after
@@tomlxyz That depend on where the gentrification happen. Gentrification basically mean town improvement so building a school and a playground is gentrification. Gentrifying the slums would usually raise it to middle class as more jobs become available in that area.
The US's anti-gentrification movement is a rather odd to me. I mean, I know that their aim is more about lower rents for the poor but why are they against any improvement to the locals living condition? Then again, perhaps at some point of time, they become misguided into believing that any town improvement and development projects are bad when what they should have done is advocating for more social housing programme.
@@13gan The problem is every time some area gets “improved”, all the locals are displaced at random, and the cost of housing skyrockets, because we live in a world where every development is expected to be the next real estate boom. So you end up with another yuppie neighborhood without soul.
@@tomlxyz It's called white flight in the US, they all move to the suburbs.
As someone working in Bad Homburg, I learned more in the first 2 minutes about this town then after 10 years of working here! Nice Vid
After living in Germany for 9 years, off and on, videos like this make me miss it all the more. Thank you!
*sings* I'm making a note here: "Great Success!"
"It's haaard to oooverstate my satisfaction!"
@@leDespicable
Deutsches Kaiserreich:
We do what we must
Because we can
For the goOOod of all of us
Except the ones who are dead
We do what we must, because we can
It's so weird to see you make a video about the town I moved to 2 years ago xD Thank you for the explanation, I had no idea why there was a bridge there at all, even though I have used it a lot before (mostly sitting on the bus).
I visited Bad Homburg once. I wouldn't call it a highlight of Germany or even Hessen, but still very pleasent. I did notice this bridge.
Wonderful video. I briefly lived in Bad Homburg and had to cross this wonderful bridge to get to the town centre. Loved crossing it every time. I still have a soft spot for Bad Homburg and now that I live in the UK, I often think of it when I visit similar spa towns here (like Buxton, Bath or Harrogate) Interesting too that many British spa towns have spa or bath added to the name like German ones have Bad. Anyway, one thing that surprised me was the claim it was the first flyover. I'm not going to be specific about using that term, it's the 'first' bit since Holburn Viaduct in London is the same type of thing, is incredibly well known and was built decades earlier in 1869. I've seen loads of these types of bridges built to span urban galleys in the UK. Where I live now in MCR there is a really nice one in Stockport that rises above the Underbank. The St Petersgate Bridge dates from 1868 and is exactly the same thing, for the same purpose really.
Wilhelm and his brother Heinrich shared a number of interests. Both liked yachting and ships ( which is more generally known) and automobiles ( which seems to be forgotten). Heinrich even got a patent for a windshield wiper ( that still had to be operated by hand). Berliners joked about the horns that the automobiles of the imperial family were equipped with. The famous maker Martin whose products later became synonymous with all signal horns of police and fire-brigades supplied four-tone horns for the cars of the Hohernzollern family. Of course Wilhelm was privileged. His car was the only one that was allowed to go through the centre arch of the Brandenburg Gate and its horn played the leading motif of the "Ride of the Valkyries". Berliners then would sing "Hier kommt der Kaiser" with it.
I grew up in Bad Homburg, spent a lot of my youth on and under that bridge. Thanks for this great vid!
You teach me more - and, most importantly, more INTERESTING - facts about my own surrounding than I ever learned by anyone else.
Love your videos!
Grüße aus der Wetterau!
gude!
Ah jemand aus der tiefsten Provinz! Grüße aus Friedrichsdorf - dem Nabel der Welt! ^^
Great video!
Greetings from a Bad Homburger
This format. Please. It's just perfect.
I love how direct and informative this video style was!
Thanks for the little journey. It was interesting to watch.
Wow, I really like your new graphics, Rewboss! Keep it going
I used this bridge many times and had no idea about it's history. Thank You.
Love the commentary - "other, more useful purpose". Can appreciate the elegance of the expression. Thank you, Andrew
Thanks for the video! Our area is full of amazing history and stunning stories.
The things I learn from you that I didn't even know I wanted to learn are incredible
I've visited Bad Homburg and as you say it is an interesting and attractive place. Thanks for another great video
Very interesting topic and nice to know;) Grüße aus Bad Homburg!
Liked the intro, and the length is spot on for the subject.
The explanation is clear, concise and detailed as always. Very nice!
Also it's not difficult to see why there was opposition to the placement of a concrete eyesore over a city centre.
Fascinating bit of civil engineering both old style and new. The compromise just looks 👍 great
Getting this recommended is crazy. I am living next to Bad Homburg :D
Excellent video.. I'll be watching other videos that you've made..
Very interesting video as ever. Keep up the good work.
Very cool video! Bad Homburg is just 30 minutes by bike from me here in Oberursel, I will go and check out the bridge sometime!
the phrase "for a future video" always brings a smile to my face :)
Other place to add to the list of places to check out. Thanks for a great video 👍
Very very interesting history. Picturesque bridge.
Thank you for this, I had always wondered about the bridge but was too lazy to research it :)
My wife’s cousin lives just up the road from Bad Homburg in Friedrichsdorf! It’s a lovely area, another reason I’m gutted we had to leave Germany. The drive down from NRW is something I am always going to miss.
Tasting all the mineral waters in one day, I left Bad Homburg with a lil stomach ache, but that city is just beautiful, so it was worth it. :)
I'm glad he was rehabilitated with the bridge naming.
Never thought I'd see a video about Bad Homburg lol
Hey I live there
I always watch your videos and now you are doing my town, very interesting!
I just moved in Bad Homburg last March. I enrolled in a language class in the VHS and we made a little tour in the city including this bridge. Wished I had seen this video before because I was assiged to discuss the Ritter Von Marx Brücke 😆
That was a classy looking mayor... Looking cool as!
I'm glad escaped but it must have been heartbreaking for him. And so many others.
I find it appropriate that in his photo, the Mayor of Homburg appears to be wearing a Homburg.
Man, I'm bummed out that I didnt notice this when I went through Bad Homburg a few years ago to go to the Roemerkastell. I definitely noticed the train station! I feel bad that I didnt do more reading about that area before I went. The Roemerkastell was really cool!
The russion orthodox churches are pretty common in Spa Towns, because the russian nobility loved to travel there.
Here in Wiesbaden there's also a (very visible, golden domed and on a hill) orthodox church and it is rumored that a russian noble lost a good part of his land gambling in our Spielbank (Casino).
So does that mean unless there's been Russian nobility in town the church stayed unused?
@@tomlxyz ?? Why that ??
@@tomlxyz I'm not sure to be honest, but with how intertwined the european nobility was, there was propably always a russian noble and their entourage around.
Also, we have at least today a large russian community here, not sure how it was back in the day.
Gutes Video komme aus Bad Homburg und fahre oft über die Brücke 👍
Danke sehr!
How deeply I love Germany and her grey, rainy weather. May you flourish.
The narration voice is great and pleasant. It's read like a normal person. There are so many bad ones here on youtube. So many sound like robots.
Thank You....
A Rather interesting History
I quite like it.
Love this video and makes me want to learn German to simply talk more about the historic country!
How did i only find out about this video now?? IM FROM THERE, LIVED THERE MY WHOLE LIFE WHATTT
Bad Homburg is a great town!
Whatever this is called, it is also nifty and that is enough for me.
Schönes Video
Very cool. A multi-generational civic success story.
Nice to find an englisch video about my own little town 😅
With the Kennzeichen: "Habe Geld"...Subscribed Sir!
Been there 1000 times, always parked under the bridge, never knew the history of it.
The bridge was already faux-historic when it was built. So version 2.0 is now faux-faux-historic?
Yes.😀
If you’re on the other site of the Taunus you can also take the Bus number 50/51. This one starts in Rod an der Weil or Hasselbach and ends at the train station shown in the beginning.
Haha great video I live in bad Homburg 😄
Can I suggest that you invest in some video-stabilizing software or a gimbal? The shakiness is very noticeable.
Another great video about are very interesting topic. You keep teaching Germans about Germany. Thank you.
There is the Archway in North London over the A1, which has know buildings on it, and a number of ornate bridges around Stockport, Greater Manchester dating from various times. Holborn Viaduct effectively goes over a former river valley - the river itself being culverted much earlier.
The thing is, a structure needs to fit in with the surrounding infrastructure.
You can't just throw in random bits of architecture in together and expect it to work.
Sure, variations of a style are welcome but there needs to be an overall look to the town to make it appealing.
And it needs to be clean as well.
exactly, a huge brutalist concrete block between historic traditional and very detailed buildings is an eyesore
jepp - the old trouble: installing some "modern art" instead of blend it in carefully from begin on… thanks for the report, rewbos.
Greetings from the Taunus
That's kinda scary to see on my recommendations since, i live like 5 mins away from the bridge
This is where i grew up.
According to Wikipedia, Bad Homburg was a favorite destination for Russian nobility, which would explain the Orthodox church.
This special Russian-Orthodox Church was built between 1896 and 1899 by a Russian Noble who visited regularly Bad Homburg. At that time Bad Homburg was part of the Grand-Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt - and one sister of the Grandduke was married to Tsar Nikolaus II. The Tsar himself opened the works for this church in 1896 - so not only the Kaiser was in Bad Homburg.
Btw.: The Church is still runned by a Russian-Orthodox Parish, i.e. working as a Russian-Orthodox Church and not a museum.
Fun fact: The former train station for the Kaiser is now a club mostly visited by 16-18 year old teenagers. Because in Germany clubing is generaly alowed from 16 on.
Not necessarily the first project of its type in Europe - Edinburgh's vaults were originally constructed with a similar purpose. Looks like Bad Homburg pulled it off a bit better though!
Interesting, but certainly not the first such bridge of its type. See South Bridge in Edinburgh or Holborn Viaduct in London. Both were built for similar purposes and predate this significantly.
Why do some of the houses have little fences near the bottom of their roofs?
They're snow guards. If there's a thick enough layer of snow when the weather starts to get warm again, as it thaws it can slide off the roof. This might injure somebody, especially if there are lumps of ice in the snow, so the snow guard just helps to reduce that risk.
@@rewboss Oh, thanks.
3:03 "Hexen" and "Hessen". I always knew that those Hessians were shady af. :p
I have not heard of this bridge before (though I could have sworn I have heard the name "Ernst Ritter von Marx" somewhere before), so I found this video quite informative! Thanks for the video!
Also, I am wondering about that Russian Orthodox church in Bad Homburg. After all, I am quite interested in both Germany and Russia, so I would be interested in Russian culture in Germany!
Pretty close to that orthodox church is also a Thai temple erected in the year 1914. Bad Homburg has once a year a Thai festival with food and music in its large park. You can find more Russian culture in Bad Ems. The orthodox church there was opened in the year 1874. Before the war in Ukraine Russians used to flock there.
Coming from a local: Do NOT take the U-Bahn! You'll essentially end up in the middle of nowhere as far as tourist stuff and shopping are concerned, there are pretty much only houses and offices in Gonzenheim. By S-Bahn you end up at the train station in this video. Next to that train station is a big bus station with busses going in different directions. If you visit Bad Homburg: You're also rather close to the Opel-Zoo and a historic village with reenactors, like working blacksmiths that answer questions and coaches and such, so going to bad homburg for a few days with kids can be great.
I love your videos, greetings from Konstanz. I just have little idear for improvement: Would it be possible to stabilise the video parts a bit more in your editing application? They seem a bit shaky. Otherwise great video! :D
Stabilizing in post is tricky: when it works, it works fine; but when it doesn't, it actually makes things worse.
Ah, Frankfurt's posh cousin.
In Bad Ems there is also a Russian Orthodox Church. Reason is because in the 19th century the Russian Tsars and their royal court often came to the German spa towns for their summer holidays.
Wasn't Tsar Nicolas II not also in Bad Homburg?
And I thought including this in my fantasy novel would be unrealistic
I live there ❤
This was very interesting, but it is difficult to watch because of the shaky footage.
They did something similar in Naples to connect the inner city with the main access highway and built a giant bridge over an entire quarter just like here. Maybe even bigger. The quarter thrown under the bridge there declined as a result. Merchants on their way to the central marketplaces and travelers in general had been their most prominent source of income and now they didn't stop by anymore. Poverty ensued. Crime increased. They are now digging themselves out of the mud again and give tourist tours through the Christian catacombes, where I learned about all this. Did something comparable happen in Bad Homburg too?
No. I guess the main difference is that the quarter in Bad Homburg was a residential area to begin with, it's where people live, not where they are working.
The idea does look an awful lot like later era raised motorways through city centers (many of which have now been reclaimed as parks).
However, the aesthetics of the new bridge I kind of like, both allowing the modern construction to peek through, as well as the camouflage. It would definitely be all wrong to have it in pure concrete.
And what is it like to live on the 2nd floor with buses driving by just outside your window?
He certainly propelled leaving marx on a ctiy to a whole other level...
I'm sorry... I really can't help it. (/_\) It's a sickness, really...
I'd prescribe Ritterlin for your affliction were I able.
Sadly I am as much a failed proctologist as I am a debunked elbow-expert having tried all the Engels available to me.
[btw - I still think Ernst's hat was in no way a bad one. :-)]
How is it that Europe can build an elevated roadway through the center of a historic district and somehow manage to make it look good?
Fun fact: later on the mayor invited Marx, Goethe and Schiller to take part in the official celebration who were apparently very reluctant to come... 😮
Ausgezeichnet!
Absolutely charming town. I can't wait for the who, what, and why about the Russian Orthodox church. Most intriguing 🤔
I think this was built for the many Russian visitors of the Spa. Look at Wiesbaden or Baden Baden.
The Russian aristrocacy loved to spend their time in German Spas. They all have casinos.
@@ilsekuper3045 never knew that. Thanks
@@ilsekuper3045 The Russian Orthodox church in Wiesbaden was build in honour for the Russian wife of the German duchy of Hesse Nassau. She was a daughter of the zsar and died very young during the birth of her child.
@@robertradmacher3823 Thank you for this detail. Man wird so alt, wie eine Kuh, und lernt doch immer was dazu.😻
@@ilsekuper3045 Even Dostoyevsky's "The Gambler" is set in german casinos with the russian aristocracy at hand, though i don't think it was Bad Homburg.
Bad Homburg was the official summer residence of Kaiser Wilhem II, the cousin of Czar Nicolas II (and King George V).
Consequently Nicolas needed a church for family visits. He effectively paid for and laid the cornerstone for this chapel.
Is there a good and neutral Homborg?
The "Emperors Witing Room" isn't entirely unique: there's on in Japan ad the station of Ise-Ujiyamada which serves an important shrine: Like Bad Homburg the station is large and very grand, but the Emperors waiting room is still used by the Emperor and therefore the grand staircase is roped off to prevent incursions by the great unwashed.
I wasn't suggesting it was unique, merely that there is one. There are several stations with separate buildings or at least separate entrances for royalty; and where they exist, you can be sure that it's because it was a popular destination for them.
What about Good homburg? :(
Hometown