DE S T INAT IONS
to bromeliad forests, and even a Namibian fog desert, although you can only experience full fog on certain days. If you want to linger in the
Palmengarten, the upmarket Siesmayer café (
cafe-siesmayer.de), also with an entrance from the street, is something of a meeting place for the local community. It is great for brunch on sunny mornings, provided you don’t mind the company of families. Te Palmengarten is on the
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edge of Frankfurt’s most upmarket residential district, Westend, lined with handsome turn-of-the-century villas mostly inhabited by doctors and lawyers. Tese streets are served by equally discreet eateries, such as Café Laumer (
cafelaumer.de) out on Bockenheimer Landstrasse, with its marble-topped tables reminiscent of Viennese café culture and a peaceful garden courtyard. Also close at hand in Westend is
a very impressive piece of modernist architecture with a dark history. On the map it is identified as the campus of Frankfurt’s Goethe University, but when it was built in 1921 it was the home of the huge chemical enterprise IG Farben, and for many decades was the largest office building in Europe. IG Farben was the company that came up with the formula for Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide, which was eventually used by the Nazis to such deadly effect in the extermination camps of World War II. Unsurprisingly, the company no longer exists. Moreover it wasn’t the only
Frankfurt’s Goethe University campus is an impressive piece of modernist architecture with a dark history
sector here. Tat’s why its stunning modernist glass-walled rotunda is called the Eisenhower Café, and although it is mostly filled with student laughter today, it still carries memories of a controversial history.
big enterprise that resided in this complex, because aſter the war Germany was temporarily divided up into sectors controlled by the victorious Allies. Te new temporary tenant was the US Army, which sited the headquarters of the American-run
JUNE 2 0 18
HAUPTBAHNHOF AND THE RIVER Veterans of past Frankfurt business trips will no doubt shake their heads sadly at the mention of the main railway station. For decades the terminus was associated with a community of down-and-outs, who gathered around its entrances, and with the red light district that animated the adjacent grid of streets. Tese days the station precincts are heavily policed and, although Taunusstrasse remains a place of casinos and table dancers, its parallel streets of Kaiserstrasse and Munchenerstrasse have been radically gentrified, but without losing their ethnic edge. Today there’s a small twice-weekly (Tuesday and Tursday) farmers’
market in Kaiserstrasse, selling mostly regional cheeses, sausages and smoked meats – good for a quick lunch. Tis street also hosts a wide variety of world cuisines, from New York pastrami to Neapolitan pies. If you want German schnitzel and steak, then head for the uncompromisingly titled Meat Room (meatroom-
frankfurt.com); if your dietary inclinations lie in the opposite direction, then walk across the road to the South Indian vegetarian favourite Saravanaa Bhavan (
saravanaabhavan.de), with its thalis and masala dosas. For later nightlife, Kaiserstrasse’s Club Orange Peel (
orange-peel.de) hosts everything from poetry slams to jazz, blues, funk and soul nights. Running parallel to Kaiserstrasse,
Munchenerstrasse is also lively into the evening, but it has more of an oriental atmosphere. Tis is the focal street for Frankfurt’s Turkish community, with an emphasis on male grooming parlours and ethnic CONTINUED ON PAGE 78
busin e s s t r a ve lle r . c o m
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: The Palmengarten is a green oasis; don't miss trying the apple wine; the Goethe University
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