Stuttgarts very own: Leonhardsviertel
My last walk through the old town was a while ago. Maybe too long ago. A few days back I read that the brothels are to leave the Leonhardsviertel, and since then this quarter hasn't left my mind.
So that nobody gets the wrong idea: PURE has little to do with the classic red-light scene. Our gentlemen are far more likely to sit in one of the bars I wrote about in Hotelbars in Stuttgart, in denen ein Abend leise beginnen darf than in a pub on Leonhardstraße. Still, it would be dishonest to claim that what is happening there leaves me cold. Anyone in Stuttgart whose work has to do with night, closeness and discretion cannot walk past this corner. It belongs to this city as much as the TV tower. It just rarely makes it onto a postcard.
An evening with the vice squad: Stuttgart's old town in the early years
I remember an invitation from the very beginning of PURE. An evening where people from the quarter came together, landlords, operators, a few faces I have never forgotten. And right in the middle sat the vice squad. Officers who wanted to introduce themselves. No inspection, no interrogation. They handed out the mobile numbers of their units so that, if something went wrong, you would reach the right people at once instead of hanging in a queue.
Back then it struck me as strange. I soon understood what lay behind it. People knew each other. Nobody had to like each other, but everyone had a place here, and that was respected. Live and let live, except nobody called it that.
The Leonhardsviertel after the pandemic: then came the axe
After the pandemic I had the feeling the city had taken an axe to this quarter. Lanes where myths had survived for centuries are now meant to become one thing above all: urban living. Bright, orderly, easy to renovate. I understand the reasons. It still makes me sad.
The new bars are not the problem, and I want to say that clearly. Whoever stands behind the counter there today is doing their job, earning their living, and has often put more heart into the place than you can see from outside. The Brunnenwirt on Leonhardsplatz, Weinstube Fröhlich, the Bix Jazzclub and all the small new places in between keep the quarter alive. It is just alive in a different way. And somewhere between the next cocktail menu and the next construction sign, something disappears that you cannot simply reopen.
What should remain of Stuttgart's old town
The Leonhardskirche, standing above it all as if it had seen worse times. It has. Lanes you walked a little faster at night and still liked coming back to. Stories, half of them invented, the other half nobody wants to tell anymore. A quarter that never tried to please anyone. Perhaps that is exactly why it was so honest.
A city lives from its rough edges. Sand everything smooth and you get a pretty surface and lose what lay beneath it. Over all these years I have learned one thing, and it holds for people as much as for streets: it is usually the darkest corners where you are welcomed most warmly and most honestly.
I hope the old town keeps a little of that. A few untidy corners. A few people who don't ask where you're from. The next time I walk through those lanes, I would like to still recognise where I am.
If you have a memory of your own from the old town, an evening, a pub that no longer exists, or a landlord everyone knew: write to me. Perhaps one day it will find its place here, without names, of course.
Discreetly yours,
Lena