Dortmund-Metropolis
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Imagine that: New York, Hongkong, Paris, Rome, Dortmund. What is wrong with this picture? Have you ever even heard of Dortmund? No.
Dortmund is a small German town (laughable 600,000 people), but it has high aspirations, namely those of becoming one of the most popular cities in the world. It is just that it has to surpass Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, etc. first, not mentioning others like Paris or Chicago. And that is a problem, because what does Dortmund have that you cannot find anywhere else?
-- Of course, Dortmund has a movie theater, even an opera house, but who doesn't?
-- There is Schoenau, a small part of town which reminds me of a quiet copy of Greenwich Village.
-- The so called "Westfalenhallen" are the whole pride for it is here that you can go to see all kinds of acts from circuses to music shows.
-- Oh, Borussia Dortmund, really the only thing actually known outside of Dortmund, is the lovable local soccer club which went from being a world cup winner in 1997 all the way down to a bunch of losing millionaires fighting for existence in the German "Bundesliga".
-- Lucky there's a baseball team here, so that at least something connects them to the outside world now. The Dortmund Blue Devils have everything they need to be a great team, except maybe a real place to play.
But - as you can clearly see - there needs to be more to a city than that. What really makes Dortmund quite unique is its construction sites. Don't laugh, I'm serious. There are hundreds of them. It seems everywhere in town they are working on a new town - "New Dortmund" perhaps. Soon they will have a subway reaching from Greenwich Schoenau to downtown, where by the way they serve some terrific hot chocolate at a café called "Alter Markt".
Already a new library has been built, a new concert hall is in the process of being built and in near future they will build a train station, kind of a huge shopping mall which shall look like a UFO.
I think it's neat how much enthusiasm and how much effort is put into making an ex-coal mining town into a metropolis.
Of course it will never get a name as popular as - say - New York, nobody will ever really see Dortmund as more than what it is now. But they keep working on it anyway. I tell you, it's an experience and a one in a lifetime chance to be there and see it grow and become huge and famous. To be there in the middle of something big, something they will talk about for years.
And while you're there, have a look at all the construction sites and many very nice traffic jams.
Dortmund is a small German town (laughable 600,000 people), but it has high aspirations, namely those of becoming one of the most popular cities in the world. It is just that it has to surpass Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, etc. first, not mentioning others like Paris or Chicago. And that is a problem, because what does Dortmund have that you cannot find anywhere else?
-- Of course, Dortmund has a movie theater, even an opera house, but who doesn't?
-- There is Schoenau, a small part of town which reminds me of a quiet copy of Greenwich Village.
-- The so called "Westfalenhallen" are the whole pride for it is here that you can go to see all kinds of acts from circuses to music shows.
-- Oh, Borussia Dortmund, really the only thing actually known outside of Dortmund, is the lovable local soccer club which went from being a world cup winner in 1997 all the way down to a bunch of losing millionaires fighting for existence in the German "Bundesliga".
-- Lucky there's a baseball team here, so that at least something connects them to the outside world now. The Dortmund Blue Devils have everything they need to be a great team, except maybe a real place to play.
But - as you can clearly see - there needs to be more to a city than that. What really makes Dortmund quite unique is its construction sites. Don't laugh, I'm serious. There are hundreds of them. It seems everywhere in town they are working on a new town - "New Dortmund" perhaps. Soon they will have a subway reaching from Greenwich Schoenau to downtown, where by the way they serve some terrific hot chocolate at a café called "Alter Markt".
Already a new library has been built, a new concert hall is in the process of being built and in near future they will build a train station, kind of a huge shopping mall which shall look like a UFO.
I think it's neat how much enthusiasm and how much effort is put into making an ex-coal mining town into a metropolis.
Of course it will never get a name as popular as - say - New York, nobody will ever really see Dortmund as more than what it is now. But they keep working on it anyway. I tell you, it's an experience and a one in a lifetime chance to be there and see it grow and become huge and famous. To be there in the middle of something big, something they will talk about for years.
And while you're there, have a look at all the construction sites and many very nice traffic jams.
