Gallus

About 37,600 people live in the Gallus on roughly 1.6 square miles, north of the Main and bordering the Bahnhofsviertel to the east. In the Middle Ages it was called the Galgenfeld, the gallows field, which tells you what happened out here. The modern name most likely comes from the Galluswarte, one of four medieval watchtowers, rather than from Saint Gallus, though residents keen to shake off the gallows association happily suggested the saint.

Until the late 19th century this was mostly agricultural land with a few patrician estates. Then the railway arrived. The freight yard and the main station were built here, and industry followed: the Adlerwerke, the Teves brake factory and dozens of smaller plants. That concentration made the district a target, and the air raid of December 29, 1944 did damage the quarter never fully recovered from. Many companies closed or never rebuilt.

What followed was a long slide. Housing was short, and prostitution, black-market trade and later the drug trade filled the gap, leaving the Gallus one of Frankfurt's problem districts. Its inclusion in the federal Soziale Stadt urban renewal program changed the trajectory, and the quarter has since built itself a new civic identity.

The landmark is still the Galluswarte, the last of the four watchtowers that guarded the approaches to medieval Frankfurt. It was built in 1414 on the important trade road running from Frankfurt to Mainz, and it now stands, slightly incongruously, amid rail lines and modern buildings.