Living in Hoheluft-West, Hamburg

Hoheluft-West is a small trapezoid of streets in Bezirk Eimsbüttel, about a kilometre across in any direction, holding some 13,600 people on 0.7 square kilometres. That makes it the most densely populated Stadtteil in Hamburg, which is not what it feels like on the ground: the density comes from unbroken five-storey blocks, not from towers, and the side streets are among the quietest inside the Ring 2.

What it is

A surviving piece of the Gründerzeit city. Where neighbouring Eimsbüttel lost much of its prewar stock in 1943, Hoheluft-West kept most of its, so the streets read as one continuous period of building: stucco fronts, high ceilings, courtyards, corner shops on the ground floor. The residential core is known locally as the Generalsviertel, after the Prussian generals its streets are named for, among them Gneisenaustraße, Wrangelstraße, Mansteinstraße and Moltkestraße. The boundaries are worth learning because they are all streets or water: the Isebekkanal to the south, with Harvestehude on the far bank; Hoheluftchaussee to the east; Troplowitzstraße and the Beiersdorf works to the north, where Lokstedt begins; Unnastraße and Scheideweg to the west, where Eimsbüttel begins. Beiersdorf, which makes Nivea, has its headquarters and its plant on Unnastraße and is the one large employer inside the district.

The eastern boundary carries a trap. Hoheluftchaussee separates Hoheluft-West from Hoheluft-Ost, and the two are not only different Stadtteile but different Bezirke: west of the street you are in Bezirk Eimsbüttel, east of it in Bezirk Hamburg-Nord. Same name, same architecture, different district office for anything administrative.

Who lives here

Settled, comfortable and adult. There are fewer children and fewer pensioners here than the Hamburg average, foreign nationals are about 13 percent against roughly 21 percent citywide, unemployment is well below the city figure and taxable income well above it. In practice: professionals, academics, couples and older tenants sitting on long leases, plus the staff of the hospitals and the university a short walk east. It is not a student district, and shared flats are the exception rather than the rule, which is the main reason rooms here are hard to find rather than merely expensive.

What it's like during the day

Calm to the point of being sleepy. The two working streets are Eppendorfer Weg, which carries the shops, and Gärtnerstraße, which is part of the Ring 2 and a Bundesstraße with two lanes in each direction and the traffic to match. Everything between them is residential: parked bikes, school runs to the Grundschule on Wrangelstraße and the Gymnasium Hoheluft on Christian-Förster-Straße, and very little through traffic. There is no park inside the Stadtteil. The green, such as it is, is the bank of the Isebekkanal along the short southern side, which is also the pleasant way to walk east towards the Alster.

What it's like in the evening

Quiet and early. Restaurants and bars cluster on Eppendorfer Weg and Hoheluftchaussee and are neighbourhood places rather than destinations; by midnight the streets are empty. This is a district people come home to, not one they come out to. Anything later means a bus or a walk south: the Schanze is about twenty-five minutes on foot, or a few stops on the U3 from Hoheluftbrücke.

Getting around

There is no rail station inside Hoheluft-West at all, and there has been no track of any kind since the last tram along Hoheluftchaussee stopped in 1978. The U-Bahn station Hoheluftbrücke, on the U3 ring, sits just across the Isebekkanal in Harvestehude: three or four minutes on foot from the southern streets, twelve to fifteen from the northern ones. That gap is the single thing to check before you sign, because the two ends of this small district are not equally connected. The compensation is the Metrobus 5, which runs down the middle of Hoheluftchaussee on a bus lane laid on the old tram alignment. It is the busiest bus route in Hamburg, comes every few minutes for most of the day, and runs directly to the university, Dammtor, Gänsemarkt, Jungfernstieg, Rathausmarkt and the Hauptbahnhof. Cycling is flat and fast, and the centre is about twenty minutes by bike.

Eating and shopping

Enough of everything, nothing spectacular. Eppendorfer Weg and Hoheluftchaussee carry supermarkets, bakeries, butchers, pharmacies, cafes and a spread of Italian, Greek, Asian and Levantine kitchens, with the run of shops thickening as you go north towards Eppendorf. For a proper market, the Isemarkt is a short walk over the canal, laid out under the U3 viaduct along Isestraße, and it is the biggest weekly market of its kind in the city. Serious shopping means Eppendorfer Baum or the centre.

When NOT to pick it

If you want a station under your window, greenery, or a bargain. Hoheluft-West has neither park nor rail stop of its own, and the northern streets are a genuine walk from any platform. It is one of the more expensive parts of the city: expect to pay more than in Eimsbüttel or Altona-Nord, and roughly what Eppendorf costs. Rooms in shared flats come up rarely because most households here are not sharing. Gärtnerstraße and Hoheluftchaussee are loud and busy, and the district is small enough that a flat on either of them is a different experience from a flat two streets in. There is nothing to do here after ten at night.

It is the right choice if you want intact old blocks, quiet nights, good schools and a fast bus into town, and you can afford it; the wrong one on a student budget or if you need rail on your doorstep. If you want the same architecture for less, look west into Eimsbüttel; for the same feel across the street with a different Bezirk, look at Hoheluft-Ost; for smarter and greener, look north to Eppendorf; for life on the pavement, look south to Sternschanze.