The Harvestehuder Weg is a street in the Hamburg district of Eimsbüttel, which runs along the foreshore of the Outer Alster Lake from Alte Rabenstraße to Klosterstern for a length of two kilometers through the quarters of Rotherbaum and Harvestehude. With numerous detached villas from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, amidst large, partly park-like gardens, it is regarded as one of the grand avenues of the Hanseatic city and, alongside the Elbchaussee, as a testament to the wealth of Hamburg's merchants and entrepreneurs during the Gründerzeit.
The street is built up on only one side in large parts and thus allows, insofar as the rich tree population permits, views over the adjacent extensive green spaces and the Outer Alster Lake. It also enjoys additional attractiveness due to its proximity to the inner city. High square meter prices for plots, apartments, and houses make the Harvestehuder Weg one of the most expensive residential streets in Germany. As early as the middle of the 19th century, the street, with its initial development of country houses and summer residences of wealthy Hamburg families in what was then an area outside the city, occupied an outstanding position. It was subject to urban and social-historical upheavals in politics and the economy and reflects in its history the rise and fall of the respective holders of power and money, the so-called Pfeffersäcke in Hamburg.
General
Name The name, administratively registered in 1858, refers to the path to the former Harvestehude Abbey, which lay from 1293 to 1530 northwest of the present-day Eichenpark. It traces back to the place Herwardeshude, the former location of the abbey at the Pepermölenbek near what was later Altona. In literal translation, the meaning would be ferry point (Hude) of the army guardian (Herward), although Herward was an extremely common name in the region in the 12th and 13th centuries, so the obvious assumption that a certain Herward founded the landing site there is widely found in the literature.Otto Beneke: Das alte Harvestehude. In: Hamburgische Geschichten und Sagen. Hamburg 1886. Nr. 27 (Wikisource) After the relocation to the Alster, the nuns called their abbey “In valle virginum” (Virgin Valley), but the popular name remained Die Frauen von Herwardeshude, from which the name Harvestehude eventually developed through linguistic change and wordplay. The Hamburg historian and saga writer Otto Beneke further explained that this place “many a good Hamburger, since a Winterhude lies opposite, also calls Herbstehude, and not so erroneously, for ‘Harvest’ is the Low German word for autumn.” On old maps, the name Herbstehude is also partially recorded. Before the official designation, the Harvestehuder Weg was also called Unterer Fahrweg, in distinction to the parallel Oberer (Rothenbaumchaussee) and Mittlerer (Mittelweg) Fahrwege.
Location
The Harvestehuder Weg is the extension of the street Alsterufer coming from the direction of Hamburg's Neustadt and lies on the geest slope of the western shore of the Outer Alster. It begins one kilometer from the inner city area and passes through the quarters of Rotherbaum, north of the former garden house colony Fontenay, and Harvestehude, along the city district Pöseldorf, up to Klosterstern. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the street was separated from Fontenay by the inflow of the Hundebeck into the Alster; access from the city direction, coming from Dammtor, ran via the Mittelweg and Alte Rabenstraße. The Alster foreshore on the eastern side of the street is publicly accessible along its entire length with the Alsterpark laid out in 1953. With the Krugkoppelbrücke at the northern end of the Outer Alster, there is a connection to the eastern quarters of Winterhude and Uhlenhorst. The area west of the Harvestehuder Weg is the Alsterkamp, a geest height that extends between the Isebek and Alster up to Grindelberg, still clearly recognizable in today's Hamburg city map as an oval through the street lines Grindelallee / Edmund-Siemers-Allee and Alsterufer / Harvestehuder Weg.
In part, the properties of the Harvestehuder Weg are accessed from the rear via the parallel and cross-running streets of this area, such as Magdalenenstraße, Milchstraße, Pöseldorfer Weg, Alfred-Beit-Weg, Sophienterrasse, and Alsterkamp. North of the path lies the site of the former nunnery Herwardeshude, extending to the Isebekkanal, which is reflected in numerous street names in the quarter. In addition to Klosterstern, Klosterstieg, and Klostergarten, the names Frauenthal, Jungfrauenthal, and Nonnenstieg, St. Benedictstraße in honor of Saint Benedict, the patron saint of the abbey, and Heilwigstraße in memory of the founder of the abbey, Heilwig of Holstein and Schauenburg, wife of Adolf IV., refer back to this origin.
Course The Harvestehuder Weg begins in the Rotherbaum quarter at Alte Rabenstraße with the eponymous boat landing for Alster steamers. For a length of well over one kilometer, the Alsterpark runs along the eastern side of the street. The elevated terrain of the western street side opposite the park is mainly developed with detached villas in generous garden layouts from the 19th and early 20th centuries, occasionally also with flat office complexes from the 1930s and 1960s as well as residential complexes of more recent times.
Between houses number 12, the present-day Hochschule für Musik und Theater, and number 13, the Milchstraße of the Pöseldorf quarter joins. Behind the intersection with Alsterchaussee and its extension Fährdamms, at the level of house numbers 22 and 23, runs the quarter boundary between Rotherbaum and Harvestehude. In front of property number 25, the Pöseldorfer Weg meets the street, at the level of number 36 the Sophienterrasse. Subsequently, the street describes a pronounced bend around the height of the Sophienterrasse and turns in a northwesterly direction into the interior of the Harvestehude quarter. Here, at the end of the Alsterpark, are the first three buildings on the right street side outbound. Behind them, a street branches off to the Krugkoppelbrücke and separates the Alster foreshore from the Eichenpark. Up to this point, the section, due to the flat, open side to the river, is also called the wet part of the Harvestehuder Weg, in contrast to the following dry part, which leads from the Alster lowland to slightly elevated geest terrain. After just under two hundred meters, the Eichenpark ends with development by two-story rental houses from the 1960s.
The left street side from house number 57 is dominated by two- to three-story row villas and apartment buildings from the Gründerzeit, interspersed with row houses and residential complexes of more recent times. They form a sectionally closed development, the front gardens are far narrower than those in the front section of the Harvestehuder Weg. Behind the left-side Licentiatenberg, on which a small park with old tree stock is also laid out, the Mittelweg and Frauenthal cross the street, and the Hagedornstraße and after fifty meters the Klostergarten join, forming an elongated traffic junction. After the intersection of Abteistraße, the Bolivar-Park is laid out on the left side in the last street section. On the right street side is the Harvestehude St. Nikolai Church. The Harvestehuder Weg ends after a total of two kilometers at Klosterstern, a large-scale roundabout, into which a total of six streets join.
Demographics Rotherbaum and especially Harvestehude are regarded both historically and currently as two of the highest-income and socially most developed quarters in Hamburg. The income of the wage and income tax payers living here is well over twice the Hamburg average.Statistikamt Nord: Einkünfte 2004, Abfrage mit Vergleichszahlen (Memento of the original from April 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive) accessed on September 13, 2010. The Harvestehuder Weg with its exposed location and development has formed the visible representation of the rich to multimillionaire Hamburg merchant since the 19th century and, according to a survey by the magazine Capital in June 2010, is the most expensive residential street in Germany.Capital, article from June 17, 2010 in immobilien-kompass.de, accessed on September 25, 2010. Accordingly, purchase prices for single-family homes range between five and fifteen million euros, the square meter price for condominiums between 6,500 and 13,500 euros, and the rental price of apartments at 22 to 24 euros per square meter. With the new construction projects on the Harvestehuder Weg, a further increase in price development is planned, so the sales price of a condominium in the Sophienterrasse construction project is to be up to 15,000 euros per square meter.Am Harvestehuder Weg rollen immer mehr Bagger an. In: Die Welt, March 16, 2010.
Environmental protection Administratively, the Harvestehuder Weg has been subject to a variety of protection provisions and restrictions since the first development plans of 1899/1906, especially the urban preservation ordinances according to § 172 para. 1 no. 1 of the Building Code.§ 172 para.1 no.1 Building Code in dejure.org According to the Land Use Plan for the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg of October 22, 1997, it is a pure “residential area with two-story open construction”, a so-called W2o area, in which limited commercial use is provided only for office buildings by way of exception and subject to compliance with the number of stories. Furthermore, for the street according to the Landscape Program including Species and Biotope Protection Program for the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg of July 14, 1997, “garden-related living with green quality assurance” is provided, in which “open residential development with species-rich biotope elements and park-like structures” predominates. In addition, the Outer Alster Ordinance of March 29, 1953, according to which the areas bordering the Alster foreshore must be uniformly designed in terms of construction and the garden layouts must fit into the surroundings, insight into the garden must not be denied by hedges or high fences, and no foreign advertising may be attached.Outer Alster Ordinance of March 29, 1953, accessed on September 29, 2010. For the rich and partly very old tree population, primarily lindens, beeches, oaks, and horse chestnuts, the Tree Protection Ordinance of Hamburg state law of September 17, 1948 also applies. Some distinctive individual trees are under the protection status worthy of preservation.Development Plan Draft Harvestehude 13 (PDF; 205 kB) accessed on September 27, 2010.
Traffic
In the section between Alte Rabenstraße and Krugkoppelbrücke, the Harvestehuder Weg was designed as a bicycle street in 2014. To restrict traffic, some points were narrowed by marked parking spaces. In the intersection areas with the Krugkoppelbrücke and Mittelweg, it is partially expanded to four lanes, from Mittelweg to Klosterstern it is two lanes again. Traffic volume is in the medium range, as the urban main traffic flow uses the parallel Mittelweg.