MRiding the subway is nothing special. At least not in a big city like Frankfurt. 400,000 people get on the subway here every day on their way to work or school, to the theater, museum or cinema. On the train they stand or sit talking or looking silently at their cell phone, with a book or simply staring in front of them. Who wants to think about what is happening right above them as they rush through the underground? Where exactly is he driving? And vice versa: who spends time in the fresh air pondering how many cubic meters of space there is beneath their feet?
Multidimensional thinking can be exciting – just as it is beneficial to change your perspective and look beneath the surface of things. So can riding the subway be something special? Sören Appuhn’s answer sounds sobering: “Frankfurt has no real subway at all. It is a light rail because it has intersections with road traffic.” However, this admission does not stop the 57-year-old tour guide from regularly taking “time journeys with the Frankfurt subway”.
He has led groups countless times to the spot where the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the underground rail network took place 50 years ago. Anyone who finds the right angle can decipher the following on the dark board at the northern end of the B level of the “Miquel-/Adickesallee” station: “Here we did on June 28, 1963 for the benefit of the city of Frankfurt am Main and its citizens and in “In anticipation of further construction in secured peace and orderly freedom, the construction of the underground routes of the Frankfurt city railway began.” The reference to peace and freedom becomes more important when you realize that only 18 years had passed since the end of the Second World War were. According to Appuhn, the “development” in Frankfurt included, among other things, managing the increasing traffic flows.
“Everything should be underground, even the avenue ring”
That’s why the tunnel here has already been paved with asphalt. A piece of this underground road surface can still be seen today – in the tunnel leading south from the memorial plaque.
The trams should also disappear from the surface. “If you mentally count to ten from the Hauptwache station on a subway towards Südbahnhof,” reports Appuhn, “you can see a shadowy tunnel opening, switches and a piece of rails on the right-hand side: the place where the tram used to be branched off under Goetheplatz.” The idea of moving all traffic underground was later abandoned for cost reasons.
At the next stop under Schweizer Platz, Appuhn regularly asks the participants of his “time travel” tour what the sight of the station, designed by the architect Willy Orth and opened in 1984, reminds them of. The answer is “cathedral-like” – because of the columns and arches that are reminiscent of a church nave.
Casemates were discovered during construction work in 2009
Frankfurt has St. Barbara to thank, among other things, for the successful tunneling under the Main using techniques common in mining, such as temporarily freezing the surrounding earth. The patron saint of miners has been given a box of honor in the “Schweizer Platz” subway station, which is 111 steps down: at the northern end of the eastern tunnel tube, she looks down from a small display case on the wall. The saint is surrounded by first names such as Frolinde, Roselinde and Liesel. They belong to the tunnel sponsors – the then head of the city council Frolinde Balser, the wife of the then mayor Rudi Arndt and the legendary popular actress Liesel Christ.
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