Living in Winterhude, Hamburg

Winterhude is one of the three most populous Stadtteile in Hamburg, about 61,000 people on 7.6 square kilometres in Bezirk Hamburg-Nord. Its boundaries are almost entirely water and rails: the Alster to the west, the Osterbekkanal to the south, and a goods railway around the north and east. Inside that ring are four places that have very little to do with each other, which is the single most useful thing to know before you look for a room here.

What it is

Four quarters with one postcode idea. Southern Winterhude, along the Außenalster and around Mühlenkamp, Gertigstraße and Barmbeker Straße, is villas near the water and turn-of-the-century apartment blocks behind them, with the shops on Mühlenkamp and the restaurants and bars on Gertigstraße. Northern Winterhude, around Winterhuder Marktplatz, Hudtwalckerstraße and Alsterdorfer Straße, is quieter, with buildings from about 1900 and from between the wars. The Jarrestadt, between Barmbeker Straße, Saarlandstraße and Jarrestraße, is something else again: one of the largest social housing projects of the twentieth century in Hamburg, drawn on a board and built from 1926 in the dark red brick of the period, and largely spared by the firestorm of 1943. City Nord in the north is a purpose-built office city from the 1960s of open-plan blocks, including the former electricity company headquarters designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1967. On the eastern edge, former goods yards and allotments have been turned into new residential quarters, the Alter Güterbahnhof and the Pergolenviertel. In the middle of it all is the Hamburger Stadtpark, with the Planetarium in the old water tower.

Who lives here

Comfortable, educated and mostly not sharing. Foreign nationals are around 15 percent, below the city average, unemployment sits under it, and taxable income is far above it. Children and pensioners are both below the Hamburg share, so the middle of the age range dominates: professionals, families with one or two children, media and agency people, and civil servants from the offices in City Nord. The Jarrestadt and the newer eastern quarters are the more mixed, more affordable end; the Alster streets are not. Rooms exist mainly in the blocks behind Barmbeker Straße and in the east.

What it's like during the day

Green and busy in a pleasant way. The Stadtpark is the anchor, with its lawns, lake and the Planetarium, and the Alster path along the western edge is the standard walk and run. Mühlenkamp, Winterhuder Marktplatz and Goldbekplatz are the three centres of gravity, each with a weekly market and a normal spread of shops. The Goldbek and Osterbek canals run through the middle of the residential streets and fill with canoes and paddleboards in summer. City Nord is the exception: office towers, car parks and canteens, busy at nine and empty at seven.

What it's like in the evening

Sociable and civilised rather than loud. Gertigstraße and Mühlenkamp carry the restaurants and bars, the Goldbekhaus and the theatre in the Komödie Winterhuder Fährhaus draw an early evening crowd, and Kampnagel, the former crane works on Jarrestraße, is one of the most important performance venues in northern Germany. There is no club strip and no nightlife noise problem. Streets are well lit and quiet after midnight, which is exactly what people move here for.

Getting around

Five rapid transit stations inside the Stadtteil, and unusually for a network called the U-Bahn, everything here runs above ground. The U3 ring stops at Sierichstraße, Borgweg and Saarlandstraße; the U1 stops at Hudtwalckerstraße and Lattenkamp. Just beyond the boundary are the U1 at Alsterdorf and Sengelmannstraße and the S-Bahn at Alte Wöhr and Rübenkamp, which puts the eastern quarters within walking distance of three different lines. Metrobus 6 crosses from Borgweg over Mühlenkamp to St. Georg and the Hauptbahnhof, Metrobus 19 runs south through Harvestehude to Dammtor, and Metrobus 25 crosses west to Eppendorf, Eimsbüttel and Altona. One local peculiarity is worth knowing if you drive or cycle: Sierichstraße and its continuation into Uhlenhorst is a one-way street that reverses twice a day, running into town from four in the morning until noon and out of town from noon until four. Alster steamers stop at the Winterhuder Fährhaus. Cycling to the Hauptbahnhof takes about twenty minutes along the water.

Eating and shopping

Good and slightly pleased with itself. Mühlenkamp is the best single street for food, with butchers, fishmongers, bakeries, cheese and wine shops alongside restaurants; Winterhuder Marktplatz and Goldbekplatz both hold weekly markets, and the one on Goldbekplatz is the neighbourhood institution. Supermarkets are everywhere, discounters fewer. Prices for everyday food sit above Barmbek and below the Alster villa streets you can see from the same pavement.

When NOT to pick it

If your budget is tight, or if you pick a street without knowing which of the four Winterhudes it belongs to. Rents here are among the higher ones in Hamburg: expect to pay clearly more than in Barmbek-Süd or Altona-Nord, roughly what Eimsbüttel costs, and much more again in the Alster streets. Shared flats are relatively scarce because the household structure runs to couples and families. City Nord is a dead zone outside office hours and the walk through it at night is bleak. The eastern edge sits between a goods railway and a motorway feeder and is noisier than the rest. And the Stadtteil is big: a room by the Alster and a room off Saarlandstraße are half an hour apart on foot.

It is the right choice if you want green, water, calm streets and five stations to choose from, and your budget stretches to it; the wrong one if you want cheap rent, street life at two in the morning, or a neighbourhood small enough to know in a week. For the same character at lower rent, look east to Barmbek-Süd and Barmbek-Nord; for the same water on the other bank, look west to Eppendorf; for something younger and louder, look south to Uhlenhorst and St. Georg.