Living in Barmbek-Süd, Hamburg

Barmbek-Süd is a compact, dense Stadtteil in Bezirk Hamburg-Nord, around 37,000 people on 3.1 square kilometres north-east of the centre. The name is the first thing to sort out: until 1951 Barmbek was a single Stadtteil, and it was then split into Barmbek-Süd, Barmbek-Nord and Dulsberg. When somebody says they live in Barmbek, ask which one, because the three are not interchangeable.

What it is

Water on three sides and a main road down the middle. The Osterbekkanal separates Barmbek-Süd from Winterhude and Barmbek-Nord, the Eilbekkanal from Eilbek, and an S-Bahn embankment from Dulsberg; the western boundary is the Winterhuder Weg, beyond which lies Uhlenhorst. The village of Bernebeke first appears in 1271, named after the stream now called the Osterbek. What stands today is overwhelmingly twentieth century: dense blocks of flats, brick and render, rebuilt or filled in after the war. Three parts have their own names and their own feel. The Komponistenviertel in the west is the run of streets named after composers, from Beethovenstraße and Mozartstraße to Marschnerstraße and Spohrstraße, and it is the quietest and most sought-after corner. Alster-City, on the site of the old gasworks by the Osterbekkanal, is an office quarter built in the 1990s. The eastern half, towards Dehnhaide and the Dulsberg boundary, is plainer, denser and cheaper. Hamburger Straße, the old trade road north towards Lübeck, runs through the whole Stadtteil and is its noisiest line.

Who lives here

Young adults, and a lot of them living alone. Barely eleven percent of residents are under 18, the lowest kind of figure you will find in Hamburg, and the over-64s are also below the city share. Foreign nationals are around 18 percent, a little under the city average, unemployment sits slightly below the city rate and income clearly below it. In practice that is students, apprentices, nurses and hospital staff, service and office workers, and a large stock of small flats, many of them shared. This is one of the more realistic places in inner Hamburg to actually find a room.

What it's like during the day

Ordinary, in the useful sense. The Hamburger Meile on Hamburger Straße is the big covered shopping centre and the practical middle of the Stadtteil. Around it are supermarkets, doctors, chemists and the traffic of a main road. Step into the side streets and it goes quiet quickly: the Schleidenpark around Biedermannplatz, laid out in 1903 and 1904 as the first public park in a Hamburg working-class district, the Johannes-Prassek-Park by the Osterbekkanal, and the Friedrichsberger Park in the east. The canal banks are the best thing here, flat, green and continuous, and the Stadtpark in Winterhude is a fifteen-minute walk over the water. The Schön Klinik on Dehnhaide, despite being called the Eilbek clinic, stands inside Barmbek-Süd and is a large local employer.

What it's like in the evening

Local. Bars, cheap restaurants and late shops along Hamburger Straße and around the stations, a few good places in the Komponistenviertel, and residential calm everywhere else. Culture is better than the reputation: the Puppentheater Hamburg in the former youth centre on Flachsland, the amateur stage on Marschnerstraße, and Kampnagel just across the canal in Winterhude. For a proper night out you take the U3 south: five stops from Hamburger Straße to the Hauptbahnhof, and the same line carries on to St. Pauli and Sternschanze.

Getting around

Three stations on the U3 ring lie inside the Stadtteil: Dehnhaide, Hamburger Straße and Mundsburg, the last of them sitting right on the Uhlenhorst boundary. The U3 is a ring, so from here you can go clockwise to the Hauptbahnhof and the harbour or anticlockwise to Winterhude, Eppendorf and the Schanze without changing. The S-Bahn station Friedrichsberg is a few metres over the eastern boundary in Dulsberg, and Barmbek, the big interchange of U3 and S-Bahn, is one stop north in Barmbek-Nord. Buses fill in the rest, and the Adolph-Schönfelder-Straße and Schleidenstraße run straight to the offices of City Nord. Hamburger Straße and Bramfelder Straße carry heavy traffic, and the Bundesstraße 5 runs along the western edge as Winterhuder Weg. Cycling to the centre is flat and takes about twenty minutes along the canals.

Eating and shopping

Cheap and complete. The Hamburger Meile covers everything under one roof, from a supermarket to clothes and electronics; Hamburger Straße and Dehnhaide add discounters, bakeries, Turkish and Asian grocers and a long line of imbiss counters. There is a weekly market on the Vogelweide. Prices sit noticeably below Winterhude and Eppendorf, and the choice of proper restaurants is thinner than in Uhlenhorst next door.

When NOT to pick it

If you want charm, greenery at scale, or a quiet main street. Barmbek-Süd was heavily rebuilt and it looks it: long straight blocks, render and brick, few old facades and not many trees away from the canals. Hamburger Straße is a wall of traffic and the flats on it are noisy at any hour. The eastern half towards Dulsberg is plainer and less well served by shops, and the shopping centre is the social centre, which is not to everyone's taste. What you get in return is price and position: expect to pay less than in Winterhude, Uhlenhorst or Eppendorf and roughly what Barmbek-Nord costs, for a place five U-Bahn stops from the Hauptbahnhof.

It is the right choice if you want a room in inner Hamburg without an inner Hamburg rent, you will trade looks for a ring line under your feet, and canals count as scenery; the wrong one if you want a pretty street, a garden or silence. For more character at more money, look west to Uhlenhorst or north-west to Winterhude; for the same rent with the big interchange on your doorstep, look north to Barmbek-Nord; for cheaper again, look east to Dulsberg.