Essen-Steele

The Steele district in Essen at the river Ruhr was an independent city until 1929. The history of Steele, which was founded in 1578, is still tangible. Although Steele, unfortunately, became best known in the 1960s and early 1970s for its radical urban development policy. Planning measures to restructure the district saw entire streets of half-timbered houses and buildings from the Gründerzeit period torn down, even though large sections could have been saved, as documented, among other publications, by Tim Schanetzky’s study Endstation Größenwahn in 1998. The new cityscape, which characterizes the Steele district to this day, is made up of low property developments from the 1970s, giving it the feel of a seaside tourist resort – except that the Ruhr stands in for the sea in Steele and the beach promenade is modest. The renovation of the city was accelerated in particular by the scandalous construction of a branch of the Wertheim department store, which opened in 1972 and was closed again in February 1979 due to mismanagement and badly planned traffic rerouting. The Steele archive, which helped us with our research, has shelves full of files and photos tracing the city’s history. Although the conversion of the Ruhr region to a car-friendly area in the 1970s was not unusual at the time, Steele’s fate remained an isolated case. From then on, no further political majorities could be found for such drastic urban reconstructions. In the 1970s, the self-assurance of German citizens grew in general, which meant that protests against similar projects were expected.