[Sven G]

Originally posted by Developer:


Frankfurt also has a beautiful railway station, though I couldn't find good image of it.

Also Frankfurt has beautiful green streets, is modern, multi-cultural and above all it's Hessian! I could go on and on. If you can't see the beauty in it, then I don't know what man you are.

BTW, there are plenty of good images on The European Railway Server: here, in particular, as in this example:



(Now, that is a quite acceptable historic railway station, and also rather good-looking, even today: not the exaggerated "grandiosity" and kitschyness of Milan Central, for example. )

For those interested (not many, probably), there are also some interesting - and also controversial - projects for the future, such as Frankfurt 21, which would eventually transform the main railway station from a terminus to a through station, � la Hamburg HBF: see also this PDF paper (2 MB), for example (and also this alternative counter-project)...

[Developer]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Frankfurt is probably the ugliest place I've ever been, though that might just be the city center.

Please don't embarrass yourself. If you don't know what you are talking about, just don't post.

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Oh please. I live in Northeast Washington, DC. I see junkies every day. What I don't see is them actually sticking the needle in at 11 am on a Saturday morning, in the street, with the Police literally watching and showing no interest whatsoever (they were in a car 10 feet from the juy with the strap round his arm). That might be your idea of an attractive destination, but it isn't mine.

That must habe been some time ago. Drug usage has been pushed out of the city center for some years now. Frankfurt is not without problems, crime rate is high etc., but it's a beautiful city nevertheless.

First of all it has a gorgeous skyline. It might not be that impressive from an American perspective, but for Germany it is unique.



The skyline can be seen from 50 km away.



This is the R�mer, Frankfurt's famous city hall.



The Kaiserdom (emperor's cathedral) where German emperors have been enthroned.



The Paulskirche was the seat of the freely elected national convention in 1848. It is the cradle of German democracy.



Eschenheimer Turm



The Hauptwache. This is near to a shopping passage my father designed.



Alte Oper



IG Farben building



Frankfurt also has a beautiful railway station, though I couldn't find good image of it.

Also Frankfurt has beautiful green streets, is modern, multi-cultural and above all it's Hessian! I could go on and on. If you can't see the beauty in it, then I don't know what man you are.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Developer:
Please don't embarrass yourself. If you don't know what you are talking about, just don't post.That must habe been some time ago.

Last spring.

Originally posted by Developer:
First of all it has a gorgeous skyline. It might not be that impressive from an American perspective, but for Germany it is unique.

Yes, it's pretty cool - from a distance.

Originally posted by Developer:


This is the R�mer, Frankfurt's famous city hall.

I attended a wedding there last spring. It's quite lovely. You fail to show the huge-ass butt-ugly multi-story car-park right across from it, and the other crack-ugly buildings around the square.

A couple of pretty, historical buildings in the midst of concrete jungle do not a beautiful city make.

To wit:

Originally posted by Developer:


Eschenheimer Turm

Note how well it integrates with the beautiful architecture surrounding it, creating a harmonious whole.

Originally posted by Developer:
Also Frankfurt has beautiful green streets, is modern, multi-cultural and above all it's Hessian! I could go on and on. If you can't see the beauty in it, then I don't know what man you are.

I will have to take your word for it.

The people I know who work in Frankfurt all live outside the city, which they tell me is pretty much dead after the after-work parties close down around 9 p.m.

Yes, Bad Vilbel or L�mmerspiel or whatever is green and nice, but it's not really Frankfurt, either, is it.

-s*

[SimeyTheLimey]

I've been in the IG Farben building a bunch of times when it was V Corps HQ. But I thought that they pulled that down? Was I told that incorrectly? If so, what did they do with all the asbestos? As pretty as it was, that building was a safety nightmare. Have you ever ridden a 1930s Paternoster elevator?

The shooting-up incident was about 3-4 blocks from that beautiful Bahnhof you mention. It probably happened in 1994.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Have you ever ridden a 1930s Paternoster elevator?

I LOVE Paternosters. There are precious few left in operation, but they are pieces of history - like seeing an oldtimer in the street (and exempted from certain modern regulations for the same reasons)

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
The shooting-up incident was about 3-4 blocks from that beautiful Bahnhof you mention. It probably happened in 1994.

The Bahnhof quarter was notorious throughout the 80's and 90's.

I hear they've "cleaned it up". If that means the same thing it does in Hamburg, they've just displaced the drug scene to other parts of the city, where it's not quite as visible to tourists.

-s*

[Developer]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I've been in the IG Farben building a bunch of times when it was V Corps HQ. But I thought that they pulled that down? Was I told that incorrectly?

It now belongs to the university. Don't know anything about asbestos. Didn't the Americans remove it?

[Sven G]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
[...] Paternoster elevator?

Ehm... Paternoster, maybe because one couldn't know if one arrived alive to the next floor, and thus had to pray...?



(I saw such a one on a trip in Hamburg when I was a kid in the early '70s - and it really, really scared me! )

[Sven G]

-

[Developer]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
I attended a wedding there last spring. It's quite lovely. You fail to show the huge-ass butt-ugly multi-story car-park right across from it, and the other crack-ugly buildings around the square.

This is the opposite side of the square:

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Ehm... Paternoster, maybe because one couldn't know if one arrived alive to the next floor, and thus had to pray...?

You pray that your limbs arrive on the same floor as your body.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by Developer:


This is the R�mer, Frankfurt's famous city hall.

My parents were married there.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Developer:
This is the opposite side of the square:

okay...where did we park the car, then...?

hm.

:: scratches head ::

[theolein]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Not really. I saw an awful lot of people routinely knock off work at 2 pm every Friday. I.e. directly after returning from lunch. Theoretically, those people worked 5 days. In practice, they worked 4.

Nice for them. I wish I could have partaken of such things.

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Seriously, personally I think that the economy itself is the main problem: it has become a kind of god-like, almost untranscendable entity (with the associated psychological subjugation of consciences), after the failure of the models of the past. That's also why the so-called neoliberalism will eventually miserably fail -

what do you mean "will...fail"? it already has failed. it's over.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by phoenixboy:
what do you mean "will...fail"? it already has failed. it's over.

That really depends on what you mean by "failure of neoliberalism": until people still will acritically accept the irrationality of, for example, being forced to get useless jobs only in order to survive ("get an income"), you really can't say that we are headed towards a better society.

I don't see any immediate conscientization of the average person, regrettably - at least in the present situation...

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
You fail to show the huge-ass butt-ugly multi-story car-park right across from it, and the other crack-ugly buildings around the square.

And I thought that the historic centres in major German cities were almost completely pedestrianized, also following the huge S-Bahn investments of the '60s and '70s (see new city tunnels): probably the situation isn't so good, after all...? (Sorry, maybe the question is rather naive, but I haven't been in Germany for quite a while.)

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by Sven G:
That really depends on what you mean by "failure of neoliberalism": until people still will acritically accept the irrationality of, for example, being forced to get useless jobs only in order to survive ("get an income"), you really can't say that we are headed towards a better society.

I don't see any immediate conscientization of the average person, regrettably - at least in the present situation...

just give it a couple of more months. these are very recent developments. the neo-liberalization of western countries has been going on now since the mid 90s. the "average person", as you put it, has to first catch on to the idea that the conservative movement hasn't produced the results it set out to (economic growth, creation of jobs, improving people's lives, multi cultural "integration" etc.).

once the press starts writing about what is actually going on (i've even heared people talking about taking back the euro again) everything will pan out rather rapidly. the entire neo-liberal idea was to create "cheap labour" for big (and not so big ) business. now, after being morally bankrupt from the get go, it has also proven to be "economically ineffecient" and "unworkable".