#reeperbahn

Back when I lived in Hamburg, the Reeperbahn wasn’t a tourist stage for musicals. It was the raw, salt-stained "Gateway to the World"—a place where sailors waited for their next hire and the air tasted like diesel and survival. It was exciting, painfully dirty, and absolutely real.

The Rules of the Jungle 🧥🏎️

If you wanted to drink and dance, you went to the Mad House or the Top Ten. But you learned the code fast: Aggression was the baseline. If you accidentally bumped into someone on the dance floor, you just kept moving. Never apologize. In that world, an apology was a scent of blood in the water—a sign of weakness.

The kings of the sidewalk wore BOSS tracksuits as their uniform and drove heavy Mercedes-Benzes with 20 layers of custom lacquer that shimmered like oil. "There are over a thousand years of prison time sitting in this room," people said about Club 88. And they weren't exaggerating. If you took a wrong turn, you paid the toll in pain or cash. 🏴‍☠️⛓️

The ‘Einholer’ of Herbertstraße 💄🛒

I was very young and completely fascinated by this world. It all started when I met Dominika. Through her, I found my place in the machinery of the district—I became an 'Einholer' (an errand runner) for the women of the Herbertstraße.

By day, while the "respectable" businessmen slipped behind the red gates for a quick escape during their lunch breaks, I was the bridge to the normal world. I did the grocery shopping, ran errands, and handled the bank transfers for the women. In a place built on exploitation, I was the one they trusted with their money and their daily lives. 💶🤫

The Great Contrast 🏠🚃

The work required discretion, and the women rewarded me with generous tips—a kind of danger pay for navigating the cracks of society. But the most surreal part was the end of the day.

With the smell of the Kiez still on my jacket and a pocket full of cash, I would leave the neon shadows behind and drive back to my other life in Eidelstedt. I’d go from the aggressive grit of the brothels to the quiet, bourgeois safety of the railway settlements. One hour I was navigating 1,000 years of prison time; the next, I was surrounded by tidy gardens and the distant rumble of freight trains.

Two lives. One city. A world that no longer exists. 🖤⚓️

The Exit: Atlantic Swells 🌊🐚

I only did the job for four months. I was young, I needed the money—and I had a plan. As soon as I had enough cash, I packed my friends VW Beetle, strapped our surfboards to the roof, and left it all behind. The smell of the Kiez and the silence of Eidelstedt were replaced by the salt spray of the French Atlantic. I traded the red lights for the sunset. It was the ultimate escape. 🌅

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Just because you are fascinated by a world doesn't mean you have to disappear into it.

Between you and me, my youth could have been worse; well, it was, but that was back in 1978 and it’s a different chapter in my story, in a different volume on the shelf of my life.

After that, I travelled the world... first of all, things turn out differently than you expect if you let them.

A ropewalk/Reeperbahn is a long straight narrow lane, or a covered pathway, where long strands of material are laid before being twisted into rope. The rope maker first stretched a number of individual strands along the length of the rope walk and later twisted or plaited these strands into thicker ropes. The standard rope of the British Navy, the British Naval Rope, was one cable length long (180–220 metres). Until the introduction of steam engines in 1836, over 200 men were required at the British Chatham Dockyard to produce a ship’s rope with a circumference of 20 inches.

"The Ropewalk in Edam" by Max Liebermann, 1904

As the finished ropes usually had a considerable length, generally around 200 metres, the Reeperbahnen/ ropewalks were up to 400 metres long. When they were no longer needed, the tracks were often converted into roads, so that today there are streets named Reeperbahn in several places in Germany. The Reeperbahn in Hamburg’s St. Pauli red light district is world-famous. But there are also Cable streets like the one in London or the RopeWalks district in Liverpool.

So if you ever come across a very long road like that, or one with a similar-sounding name, it’s quite likely that there is a rope/ cable history behind it.

Reeperbahn I by Hannah Höch, 1927 Watercolour and pen and ink drawing on light card 8,8 cm x 7,4 cm Private collection