Dhe street from which we say goodbye with a heavy heart is so narrow and inconspicuous that the author of these lines walked past it when he hurried to the recruitment test for volunteers in the last century. Outside of Frankfurt’s city walls, nobody would have noticed the little street if the FAZ hadn’t moved to the Gallus district a few decades ago, which some people still don’t want to believe to this day. After that, Hellerhofstrasse became a metonym for our paper, as was the case with Süddeutsche and Sendlinger Strasse, with Spiegel and Brandstwiete and, as Reichsbürger naturally know, with Reichsregierung and Wilhelmstrasse .
Putin would march right past Hellerhofstrasse
Let’s see if Pariser Strasse, to which we have now moved, also succeeds. There is a competitor. On the south side of our new castle, which has much higher towers than our old one, runs an avenue that was immediately named after all of Europe. But the editorial mockery calls it Stalinallee. Anyone who sees them knows why. Luckily the Russian won’t be coming from the west, because nothing would stop him on this runway. On the other hand, Putin would probably march right past Hellerhofstrasse, just like we did back then.
Ah, the Hellerhofstrasse. In the past there was not only a gas station where the company car was washed and blow-dried, but also the “press room” where you could calmly think about the next editorial over a beer. But the sober new editorial building from 1988 has also grown on us. Each of its clinker bricks can tell a story, so many small and big dramas have happened there in three and a half decades.
There were passionate discussions about almost everything (also about a move to Berlin that was fortunately called off) and lavish parties (called “Mollen”) that no outsider would have believed the FAZ capable of. When the carpeting in the newsroom needed replacing, an editor wanted to take a piece of the old carpet home with him, as if it were a piece of Wembley Stadium turf. There are few other rugs that have soaked up conversations and drinks like this one.
Do mental workers only have a low metabolism?
Of course, not everything was gold in the buildings on Hellerhofstrasse either. We found the editorial mice who showed up for the late shift quite cute. On the other hand, the inrush of water during heavy rain was annoying, which of course drove out any last doubts about climate change. And even the chronically clogged toilets had their good side: for years they prepared us for the fact that modern high-rise office blocks have a low toilet density, because the architects probably believe that skilled workers only have a low metabolism.
The theory of the progressive world of work also assumes that large wastepaper baskets are no longer needed, which some dinosaurs from the Gutenberg era still doubt. In any case, the prices for the old barrels rose on the editorial black market. On the other hand, the exchange value for books, which many editors had hoarded like Fafner the treasure of the Nibelung, fell into the abyss. Because in the new towers there are only bonsai shelves, even for the lucky ones who don’t have to share their workplace. Sofas, on which spectacular ideas were born, were also to be left behind. That was the last big debate.
No aquarium in the new greenhouse
Divorce hurts, even the editorial mouse doesn’t bite off a thread. But in the end, with our brand new glass house in mind (which doesn’t have an aquarium in it), no one got stuck in the old case. That would not correspond to the freedom-loving spirit that prevails among us. Of course, he also moved to the Europaviertel. Nevertheless, we will never again walk past Hellerhofstrasse without paying attention, even if in a few years there will be nothing left to remind us that the Temple of the Clever Minds once stood there.
