Living in Eimsbüttel, Hamburg

Eimsbüttel is the namesake and most populous Stadtteil of Bezirk Eimsbüttel, immediately north-west of the university quarter. Around 58,000 people live on 3.2 square kilometres, which makes it the second most densely populated Stadtteil in Hamburg after neighbouring Hoheluft-West. It has no S-Bahn station, no waterfront and no famous landmark, and it is still one of the addresses people ask for by name.

What it is

A residential district built almost entirely for renting. Eimsbüttel appears in the records in 1275 as one of the small villages outside Hamburg, was burned by French troops in 1813, grew as a Vorort through the nineteenth century and was incorporated into Hamburg in 1894. Tenement blocks went up across the fields immediately afterwards, many of them for people displaced from the Altstadt by the building of the Speicherstadt. The air raids of 1943 took out large parts of that stock, so what stands now alternates: Gründerzeit blocks with stucco fronts, dark brick from the Fritz Schumacher years, and plain postwar infill, often on the same street. In 2008 the southern strip around the Schanzenpark was split off to form the separate Stadtteil of Sternschanze, which is why the Schanze feels like an extension of Eimsbüttel rather than a different place. The centre of gravity is the U-Bahn station Osterstraße and the shopping street of the same name.

Who lives here

Young adults, couples and long-settled tenants. The statistics are the opposite of the Hamburg average at both ends of the age scale: fewer children and fewer pensioners than the city as a whole. Foreign nationals are around 13 percent, below the citywide share, and unemployment runs under the city figure. In practice that means students from the nearby university, people in media, design and the professions, and households that moved in years ago and are not leaving a regulated rent. Eimsbüttel also has a genuine music history, with the Beginner, Samy Deluxe and the Eimsbush label all rooted here. Shared flats are common and heavily contested.

What it's like during the day

Busy, low-rise and greener than the density suggests. Osterstraße and Heußweg carry the shops, cafes and the everyday traffic of the district; the side streets off them are lined with trees and mostly quiet. The Eimsbütteler Park Am Weiher is the main green space inside the quarter, and the Kaifu-Bad on Weidenstieg, opened in 1936 as Hamburg's first heated open-air pool, sits on the Isebekkanal at the eastern edge. There are a lot of schools, from primaries to four Gymnasien, so mornings and early afternoons run to the school timetable. Fruchtallee, Doormannsweg and the Kieler Straße along the western edge are the loud exceptions: these are through routes and they sound like it.

What it's like in the evening

Neighbourhood rather than nightlife. Restaurants, wine bars, corner pubs and small venues fill the main streets and thin out by midnight; the residential blocks go quiet early. Nobody comes to Eimsbüttel for a night out, because the Schanze is a short walk or one U-Bahn stop from Schlump and St. Pauli two stops beyond that. The practical effect is that you can live here, go out loudly, and still sleep when you come home.

Getting around

The U2 is the spine and there is nothing else on rails. Five stations lie inside the Stadtteil, north to south: Lutterothstraße, Osterstraße, Emilienstraße, Christuskirche and Schlump. Schlump is the interchange to the U3 ring, which is how you reach Barmbek, Eppendorf and the harbour without going through the middle. From Christuskirche the U2 reaches Jungfernstieg in four stops and the Hauptbahnhof in five. There is no S-Bahn station in Eimsbüttel at all: the nearest is Sternschanze, just over the southern boundary, which matters if you commute to the airport or south of the Elbe, because that means a change. Metrobus lines 4, 15, 20 and 25 cross the district, the ground is flat, and cycling to the centre takes about twenty minutes.

Eating and shopping

Everyday and good at it. Osterstraße is the main run of bakeries, butchers, greengrocers, supermarkets, cafes and small independent shops, with Heußweg and Eimsbütteler Chaussee taking the overflow. There are Turkish, Italian, Vietnamese and Levantine kitchens in numbers, plus organic shops and delis reflecting who lives here. Weekly markets are held on Grundstraße in the north and on Gustav-Falke-Straße near Schlump. For the big one, the Isemarkt under the U3 viaduct on Isestraße is a fifteen-minute walk east, over the boundary in Harvestehude, and is the largest of its kind in the city.

When NOT to pick it

If you need an S-Bahn, if you want water or a big park at the end of the street, or if you are looking for a bargain. Eimsbüttel is a well-known, well-liked address, and it is priced accordingly: expect to pay more than in Altona-Nord, Stellingen or Barmbek and roughly what you would pay in Ottensen. Rooms come up rarely and go within days, all year. The building stock is mixed, so a flat on a Gründerzeit street and a flat in a postwar block two hundred metres away are not the same product. The northern and western edges along Kieler Straße are noisier and plainer than the reputation implies, and there is no green space of any real size inside the quarter.

It is the right choice if you want a dense, walkable, unremarkable-in-a-good-way residential district with the U2 under it and the Schanze within walking distance; the wrong one if you are on a tight budget or need a direct S-Bahn. For the same feel with more money, look east to Hoheluft-West and Eppendorf; for lower rents, look west to Stellingen or south to Altona-Nord; for noise and nightlife on your own street, look to Sternschanze.