Living in Eppendorf, Hamburg

Eppendorf sits west of the Alster in Bezirk Hamburg-Nord, whose district office is here, and holds around 25,000 people on 2.7 square kilometres. It first appears in the records in 1140 as Eppenthorp, which makes it Hamburg's oldest village, and almost nothing about it is cheap. The two things that shape daily life are the university hospital in the west and the water in the east.

What it is

An old village that became a well-off residential quarter. The parish church of St. Johannis, first mentioned in 1267, still stands by the Alster, and the street pattern around Eppendorfer Landstraße and Eppendorfer Marktplatz follows the old village. Around it are late nineteenth and early twentieth century blocks, villas along the water, and an unusual number of charitable foundations sitting on park-like grounds, among them the Kloster St. Johannis, the Jenischstift and the Stift Anscharhöhe. The Alster forms the eastern boundary with Winterhude, the Isebekkanal the southern one with Harvestehude, and a goods railway the northern one with Groß Borstel and Alsterdorf, where the Tarpenbek flows into the Eppendorfer Mühlenteich. The Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, founded in 1884 and a university hospital since 1934, occupies a campus of its own in the west and is one of the largest employers in the city.

Who lives here

Older, wealthier and more German than almost anywhere else in Hamburg. Foreign nationals are under 12 percent against roughly 21 percent citywide, unemployment is barely half the city rate, and average taxable income is far above the Hamburg figure. Households average 1.6 people, well below the city average, so this is a district of one and two person flats: professionals, doctors and hospital staff, academics, older residents who have been here for decades, and a majority of women in the population. Students and hospital trainees do live here, but they live in the flats nobody has renovated yet, and those go quickly.

What it's like during the day

Prosperous and calm. Eppendorfer Landstraße is the promenade, a run of boutiques, cafes, delicatessens and small food shops rather than chains, with Eppendorfer Marktplatz as the hinge and a weekly market on it. The hospital campus gives the west a working rhythm of shift changes and ambulances. The green is unusually good for a dense inner district: Hayns Park with its little classical rotunda and playgrounds, the Eppendorfer Park by the hospital with an adventure playground, Kellinghusenpark beside the U-Bahn embankment, the Seelemannpark on the Alster next to St. Johannis, and the Mühlenteich at the top end, which has been the winter quarters of the Alster swans since 1957. The Holthusenbad, a public baths designed by Fritz Schumacher and built between 1912 and 1914, has an outdoor pool that runs all year.

What it's like in the evening

Restaurant quiet. People eat out here and then go home; the bars along Eppendorfer Landstraße and Lehmweg fill early and empty by midnight, and there is no club scene at all. Streets are well lit, well kept and safe to walk. If you want a late night you take the U3 south towards the Schanze or the U1 into the centre, and you come back by night bus.

Getting around

The decisive detail is where the U-Bahn is not. Kellinghusenstraße, in the middle of the Stadtteil, is a real junction: the U1 and the U3 meet there with timed connections, so you can reach both the Alster ring and the northern suburbs without changing twice. But the station called Eppendorfer Baum is not in Eppendorf at all, it is across the Isebekkanal in Harvestehude, and Hudtwalckerstraße, Sierichstraße and Lattenkamp are all over the water in Winterhude. Everything west of the Bundesstraße 433 is more than a ten-minute walk from any platform and runs on buses instead: six day lines and two night lines call at Eppendorfer Marktplatz. So the eastern half of Eppendorf is superbly connected and the western half, including the hospital, is not. The Ring 2, carrying the Bundesstraßen 5 and 433, cuts through the district and is heavily trafficked. Cycling along the Alster into the centre takes about twenty-five minutes and is one of the better commutes in the city.

Eating and shopping

Small, good and expensive. Eppendorfer Landstraße and Eppendorfer Weg carry bakeries, cheesemongers, fishmongers, butchers, wine shops and a dense run of cafes and restaurants; the market on Eppendorfer Marktplatz includes an organic and regional market. Supermarkets are there but discounters are thin on the ground, and prices for everyday food sit above what you would pay in Barmbek or Altona. The Isemarkt, the big weekly market under the U3 viaduct, is a short ride or a twenty-minute walk south along the canal.

When NOT to pick it

If you need a cheap room, if you want life on the street after midnight, or if you land in the west without checking the bus timetable. Eppendorf is among the most expensive residential Stadtteile in Hamburg: expect to pay clearly more than in Barmbek, Altona-Nord or Wilhelmsburg, and more than in Eimsbüttel. Shared flats are scarce because the household structure here is singles and couples, not sharers, so competition for the few rooms is intense and not seasonal. The district is quiet to the point of dull if you are in your twenties, the traffic on the Ring 2 is loud where it passes, and the hospital side of the Stadtteil is functional rather than pretty.

It is the right choice if you work at the UKE or in the professions, want water, parks and good schools, and can pay for a calm address; the wrong one if you are on a student budget or want to walk home from a night out. For the same feel at a slightly lower price, look south-west to Hoheluft-West and Hoheluft-Ost; for the same water with more going on, look east across the Alster to Winterhude; for room-share supply and much lower rents, look further east to Barmbek-Süd.