Reeperbahn

The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, the centre of Hamburg's nightlife and also Hamburg's red-light district. It is also referenced as "Die sündige Meile" which translates to "the sinful mile".

There are many restaurants, discos and probably hundreds of bars. There are also strip-clubs, sex shops, brothels and the like. A famous place at the Reeperbahn is the Davidwache, which is a police-station located on the South side at the cross street Davidstraße, where street prostitution is legal during certain times of the day. The Herbertstraße, a short side street of the Davidstraße, has prostitutes behind windows waiting for customers; it is closed to women and juveniles.

The Große Freiheit ("Great Freedom") is a cross street on the North Side with several sex theaters, a Catholic church and street prostitution. The Safari there is the only sex theatre left in Germany where live sex acts are shown. The street's name comes from the fact that Catholics were here allowed to practice their religion at a time when this district not yet belonged to Hamburg; they were forbidden from doing so in Protestant Hamburg proper.

The Operettenhaus, a musical-theatre, is also located at the Reeperbahn. It played Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats for many years and now "Mamma Mia!", an ABBA-musical. There are other theatres at the Reeperbahn (St. Pauli Theater, Imperial Theater, Schmidts Tivoli) and also several Cabarets/Varietés.

In the early 1960s, the Beatles (who had not yet become world-famous) played in several clubs around the Reeperbahn, including in the Star-Club, Kaiserkeller, Top Ten and Indra.

The name Reeperbahn comes from the old Low German word Reep meaning "a heavy rope for a ship"; in former times these ropes were produced here for the nearby harbor.

"Reeperbahn" is also the name of a Swedish 80's band.

External links

• http://reeperbahn.hamburg.de - links and information about the reeperbahn (in German)
• http://www.reeperbahn.de - also links to different clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. (in German)
• http://21orover.com/discus/messages/43/1010.html - Guide to Sex in Hamburg area. (in English)