The food scene
Dozens of cuisines in adjoining streets.
New York-air — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Panoramio contributor — CC BY-SA 3.0 · dontworry — CC BY-SA 3.0
Frankfurt's station district is among the most contradictory neighbourhoods in Germany within a small area: you walk a few hundred metres and pass world-class restaurants, bank towers and luxury shops, then streets with open sex work and visible drug use. That juxtaposition is not accidental but policy: in the 1990s Frankfurt adopted the Frankfurt Way — an approach treating drug addiction as a public health matter rather than a crime, establishing medically supervised consumption rooms and substitution treatment programmes. The result is that use became visible on the street rather than hidden in alleys, and deaths fell sharply. The district is also the city's most diverse: restaurants from dozens of cuisines, markets and shops for communities from every continent, and over the past decade it has become a recognised food destination. Walking it by day is entirely safe and genuinely interesting; at night it needs the ordinary attention any large city district does — and honesty serves better than prettifying here.
Dozens of cuisines in adjoining streets.
Bank towers and hard poverty within a few hundred metres.
Bahnhofsviertel, 60329 Frankfurt
Frankfurt Central StationFrankfurt Central is among Europe's largest and busiest stations: twenty-four te3 minutes walk3.8
The Euro SculptureA large sculpture of the euro symbol ringed by twelve stars, in Frankfurt's bank9 minutes walk4.5
Main TowerThe Main Tower is a skyscraper in central Frankfurt and the only tower in the ci10 minutes walk4.5
Hammering ManThe Hammering Man is a steel sculpture close to twenty-one metres tall standing 10 minutes walk4.4
Nizza ParkNizza Park is a small garden on the bank of the river Main, named after the Fren10 minutes walk4.6By day, clearly yes — thousands work there and everyone arriving by train passes through, and violent crime against passers-by is rare. The scene may be visually distressing to anyone who has not seen it before, but distressing is not dangerous. At night treat it like any large station district: stay on main streets, keep valuables out of sight, and avoid photography — photographing people here provokes justified confrontation.