How the Bornheim of the 80s became his new home

Summer 1985 in Turkey at the Robinson Club Camyuva. I am the head of sound and lighting and ensure that the shows in the theatre run smoothly. When I'm in a good mood, I also DJ and train the team in moderation. At the end of the season, I receive a call from headquarters in Frankfurt with an offer to become the head of the entire sound and lighting department worldwide and to work in Frankfurt.

I was actually supposed to go to Brazil in October to help open a new club there. After a long conversation with my girlfriend from Vienna, we decided to go to Frankfurt. We arrived in Frankfurt at the end of October 1985. We didn't know anyone and moved into a furnished room near the Hessian Monument. At the office on Stresemannstraße, it quickly became apparent that no one from Frankfurt worked there either, but some had been in the city for a while and knew their way around a bit. My girlfriend set out to find a flat and was close to despair every evening, with high prices for low quality.

But then we got lucky and found a gorgeous, freshly renovated apartment in an old building in Bornheim. The landlord was crazy about Vienna and quickly took a liking to my girlfriend, so we were able to move into “our” apartment in the new year. Bornheim is a village, and we quickly got to know our Turkish fruit seller, our Austrian bookseller, our Croatian cashier at REWE, etc. We felt at home very quickly because we were used to multiculturalism from our work all over the world. We got married in the Römer in 1986, and our daughter was born in 1988.

When I retired in 2015, I immediately looked for volunteer work and even became a citizen scholar at the Polytechnic Society Foundation. I have been studying at the U3L for many years and have a huge network of friends and acquaintances, and I still feel very, very comfortable in our city.

Jürgen Naeve