Repperbahn

Dates

2009 - 2012
Author

Antonia Zennaro

Germany, Hamburg.

Germany, Hamburg. The Reeperbahn, the red-light district of Hamburg, is a mile famous for its sin. Sex-for-cash, alcohol, violence and freedom were precisely the elements on which a whole generation based their lives. As an effect and product of the economic rise after the German post war Era, the Reeperbahn began to mold the identity of the town. The gentrification is turning the district into the new tourist and business area of the town and the Reeperbahn with its characters is dying out. The few, who are left over after a life in excesses, and hard work are living today in extreme poverty, old lonely and forgotten. They are the last once of its kind.

© Antonia Zennaro - Image from the Repperbahn photography project

Udo, 58 years old. His whole life he has lived in Hamburg in the same street and house. Over 30 years he worked in the harbor as a ship carpenter until he broke his back and cut his left arm on the docks. Since then the harbor belongs to the past. He spends his days in an old Bar at the Reeperbahn drinking beer and waiting for the death.

Twenty years ago he started to be on the stage of the Safari Club. This was his dress. After a heart stroke he had to slow down his excessive life, but could not leave the Reeperbahn. Today he is still working at the Safari Club, but only in the backstage, fixing whatever has to be fixed and changing the stage after each show.

Max came to Hamburg and the Reeperbahn when he was young. After the german mining plants closed he searched a job as a sailor. In his life he has lived through a lot, but does not like to speak about it. Hamburg became his hometown, which he will never leave again.

When he was a kid he lived on the streets, later he worked as a sailor. He was alcoholic and thought his life would end a long time ago. But for some reason he is still sitting at the bar of the Hotel Hong Kong with his dog Daisy and praises life and the lesson, which it brings to everyone.

The Bar in the Hotel Hong Kong was always full. Before the sailors could come here having good and cheap Chinese food and pass some hours or days with their ladies. Today it is the dead end for the old, lonely and poor left over characters of the golden age at the Reeperbahn.

At the Reeperbahn the big money is not anymore earned with sex and amusement but with real estate. The old and poor have to leave the district and make space for modern business strategies.

She came in the 80ies from the Philippines to Hamburg and the Reeperbahn. Here she started her carrier in Travesties Shows and could enjoy the fame of the night. The good times of the fast money are over and for her shows today she has to travel all around Germany as there is no more paying public in the streets of the Reeperbahn

Cora is the daughter of a famous artist family in the Philippines. She arrived with them to Hamburg and sang on stage. Today she is working in the Safari Club, five days a week through the whole night.

Hamburg and the Reeperbahn is famous for its Bars and the harbor. Both are two symbols, which have changed its character a lot in the last decades. The German sailor do not exist anymore as the container shipping changed the business and the special little characteristic German Bars are as well disappearing as modernity is overtaking the role.

Lisa, 80 years old. She was a famous dancer in the Café Keese a dance Café opened in 1948. She animated with her choreographies the public and got to know a millionaire, which she married. He died early and she spent all his money. Today she still lives as if she would be young and rich, struggling each month with paying back her debts.

The house belonged to the famous and forgotten China Town of Hamburg. In the cellar you could smoke Opium. Today it is a brothel for Transsexuals mainly coming from South America.

Barbara. Born in 1941. She arrived from East Prussia as a refugee by foot to Germany with her mother and brother. With 17 she escaped from home and started to make a living as a prostitute on the Reeperbahn. The life on the streets were never easy even if the money and the men where numerous. She had the luxury to choose her men and her price, but in the eighties the business changed and she stopped. Poverty and a cancer are hitting hard on her but she has never stopped to take life with a certain humor.

Already in the 18th century the lights on the Reeperbahn were attracting a mass of people. Freak shows and all kind of amusement became a big business, which changed its character over the centuries but not its aim.

Ernie, 70 years old. In his best age he worked as a mechanic and a pimp at the Reeperbahn. Hard work, lots of fun and quick money is what his generation has lived through. Not much is left over of all this. His apartment was burnt down, he lives now in the Hotel Hongkong in a tiny room and works behind the Bar to earn his money for cigarettes and beer.

The job in the Safari Club is hard earned money. It does not matter if stripping, dancing or having live sex on stage, they always earn 70 Euros the night. Every two hours the program has to be repeated from 9pm until 4 o clock in the morning.

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Repperbahn

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