Pedestrian

Today stayed grey, with some drizzle in the afternoon. I went to a meeting in the city, and parked my car outside the city centre, to avoid the painful parking fees there. 
So I walked through this street. It doesn’t look remarkable at all, but it has history. Like much of Wiesbaden, the houses along Wellritzstrasse were built in the late 1800s, when the city became a fashionable spa. But this area was never posh - this was where the working class lived. 

In the 1960es and later, more and more immigrants moved here, and many businesses got converted into Turkish, Asian, and Eastern European shops and restaurants. So, it was very lively, but felt like a different world. Some people didn’t like to walk there after dark, because they were too scared of the many immigrants (mostly men) smoking and drinking on sidewalks, or just sitting in dark corners.  

But now it’s being converted into a pedestrian zone. The restaurants and cafés are expanding into the street, there are plants and more lights, and the atmosphere has become much more relaxed and friendly.