Reeperbahn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, the centre of Hamburg's nightlife and also the city's red-light district. In German it is also called "die sündige Meile" ("the sinful mile"), or simply "der Kiez". Location: .
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[edit] Name
The name Reeperbahn comes from the old Low German word Reep meaning "a heavy rope for a ship"; in former times these ropes were produced here for the nearby harbour.
[edit] The street, and its side streets
The street is lined with many restaurants, discos and probably hundreds of bars. There are also strip clubs, sex shops, brothels, a sex museum and the like. The Operettenhaus, a musical-theatre, is also located at the Reeperbahn. It played Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats for many years and now Mamma Mia!, an ABBA-musical. There are other theatres at the Reeperbahn (St. Pauli Theater, Imperial Theater, Schmidts Tivoli) and also several Cabarets/Varietés.
A famous landmark is the Davidwache, a police-station located on the South side of the Reeperbahn at the cross street Davidstraße. Street prostitution is legal during certain times of the day on Davidstraße. The Herbertstraße, a short side street of the Davidstraße, has prostitutes behind windows waiting for customers. Unlike De Wallen, the red-light district in Amsterdam, it is closed off with a large gate and juveniles and female visitors are not allowed in.
The Große Freiheit ("Great Freedom") is a cross street on the North Side with several bars, clubs and a Catholic church. In former years, several sex theatres here (Salambo, Regina, Colibri, Safari) would show live sex acts on stage. As of 2005, the Safari is the only live sex theatre left in Germany. The popular table dance club Dollhouse now takes the place of the Salambo. The street's name comes from the fact that Catholics were allowed to practice their religion here at a time when this district did not yet belong to Hamburg; they were forbidden from doing so in Protestant Hamburg proper.
[edit] The Beatles
In the early 1960s, The Beatles (who had not yet become world-famous) played in several clubs around the Reeperbahn, including the Star-Club, Kaiserkeller, Top Ten and Indra. Stories about the band's residencies, onstage and offstage antics are legendary; some stories are true (on a dare, John Lennon played a song set in his underwear, while George Harrison replied by playing a later set with a toilet seat around his neck), others inflated (the band urinating in an alley as nuns walked past was told rather differently later). A fellow musician, Ted "Kingsize" Taylor, made a crude tape recording of their last New Year's Eve show, at the Star-Club in December 1962; a cleaned-up version of the tape was later released as an album, later characterized by Harrison as "Awful."
Famously John Lennon is quoted: "I might have been born in Liverpool - but I grew up in Hamburg".
[edit] Movies, songs, etc.
The popular 1944 movie Große Freiheit Nr. 7 tells the story of a singer (played by Hans Albers) who works in a Reeperbahn club and falls in love with a girl played by Ilse Werner. Hans Albers and Heinz Rühmann played in the 1954 movie Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins ("On the Reeperbahn at 12:30 am"). The title song, sung by Albers, is still popular to this day and can often be heard in St. Pauli.
"Reeperbahn" is also the name of a Swedish 80's band, and a song by Tom Waits. The Finnish artist Irwin Goodman has made a song and an album called "St.Pauli ja Reeperbahn". It is also mentioned in the Elvis Costello song "Human Hands", in Van Morrison's song "Heavy Connection" and in the Midnight Oil song "Mountains of Burma".
On May 14th, 1998, The Smashing Pumpkins played a free concert on the street, drawing so many people that some were forced to watch from the roofs of the newsstands.
Punk band Pistol Grip has a song titled Reeperbahn on the unreleased album Machines of String Theory in C#M. (As of March 2007)
[edit] Pubs, Discotheques, Shops
- Aftershave (Funk/House/Black)
- Angie's Nightclub (Soul/Jazz/Livebands) website
- Betty Ford Klinik
- Café Keese
- Change (Gay)(Electronica) website
- China Lounge (House) website
- Condomerie Hamburg (shop)
- Docks (Trance/Latin/RnB/Mixed) website
- Cult Club (70s, 80s, Classics) website
- Dollhouse (Strip Club) Info
- Echochamber (Reggae/Dancehall/Electro) website
- Erotic Art Museum
- Funky Pussy Club (HipHop/R&B) Info
- Frida B (Mixed)
- Große Freiheit 36 (Mixed) website
- Grünspan (Mixed/Livebands) website
- Hasenschaukel website
- Kaiserkeller (rock/indie/alternative/crossover) (belongs to Große Freiheit 36)
- La Cage (House/Techno)
- Las Vegas Jackpot (Casino)
- Lounge (House/Soul/Latin/Lounge) Info
- Mandarin Kasino (HipHop/RnB/Funk/Soul/Reggae/Livebands) Info
- Molotow (Livemusic/Clubnights/Rock) website
- Mojo Club (Blackmusic/Groove/Soul/Jazz)
- Pit (Gay) (Electronica) website
- Pacha (House) website
- Panoptikum (waxworks) website
- Rutsche (Dancehall/Techno/Pop/Rock) website
- Schmidts Tivoli (Theater) website
- Sexy Heaven (Sex Shop)
- Soundgarden (Pop/Rock/Electro/Techno/Oldie)
- Superfly (House/HipHop/Mixed) website
- Thomas Read (House/Pop/R&B, Irish Pub) website
- Tunnel (Trance/Techno/Hardstyle/Hardcore) website
- Waagenbau (Electronica/Techno/HipHop) website
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- http://reeperbahn.hamburg.de - links and information about the reeperbahn (in German)
- http://www.reeperbahn.de - also links to different clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. (in German)
- http://www.backtony.com - Nightlife and scene Magazine around the Reeperbahn. (in German)
- http://21orover.com/discus/messages/43/1010.html - Guide to Sex in Hamburg area. (in English)
- http://www.reeperbahnmusic.co.uk - British rock band, based in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Played with bands such as Mondo Generator and others.
- http://www.szene-in-hamburg.de/reeperbahn.html - the night life in Hamburg on the Reeperbahn. (in German)
