Koelner Kiez | Fotoeins Fotografie

El Bocho, street art, He Is Gone and I Am Still in Cologne, Ehrenfeld, Köln, Cologne, North Rhein-Westphalia, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, fifty-five

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, which began 24 December 2011 and ended 15 January 2013.

14 January 2013.

This is the last day of the year-long RTW, and this is the 55th and final installment in the series.

I spend that last light in Köln’s Ehrenfeld (“Ihrefeld”), one of my favourite places in both city and country. I catch this piece of street-art by Berlin-based artist El Bocho: “He Is Gone and I Am Still in Cologne.” If only I could stay a little longer.

Tomorrow, I’m on an express train to Frankfurt Airport for a flight to London, followed by that familiar hop over the big eastern pond back to Vancouver.

I made the image on 14 Jan 2013 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/10-sec, f/3.5, ISO800, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-ngd.

My Cologne: wandering the streets in Ehrenfeld

For many, the German city of Cologne brings to mind the Cathedral, Karneval, and perfumed water.

For me, Cologne brings to mind great friends, tasty Turkish nibbles, football side 1. FC Köln, and Ehrenfeld.

My friend Y wanted to test her new camera on the streets, and when she suggested the Ehrenfeld neighbourhood, I readily agreed. My many visits to this city on the Rhine have frequently ended up in Ehrenfeld that’s largely Turkish and working class, an immigrant blue-collar area with which I readily identify and it’s why Ehrenfeld is my K-‘hood.

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Helios Leuchtturm, Helios AG, Ehrenfeld, Koeln, Cologne, Germany, fotoeins.com

My Cologne: there’s a lighthouse that never goes out

“Why is there a lighthouse located in the middle of the city? That makes no sense!”

“Did the Rhine river once flow here? Is that why there’s a lighthouse?”

“Is the structure some kind of forgotten remnant of the past?”

“Maybe that’s not a lighthouse, but rather a beacon that lets people know about a fire somewhere in the neighbourhood.”

These are some of the questions and statements posed by Cologne residents when asked if they know anything about the lighthouse in their midst.

Located in the Ehrenfeld¹ borough of Cologne is a red brick 44-metre (144-foot) high lighthouse. But why is there a lighthouse at all in the “middle” of Cologne? The Rhine river flows through the city, but the river is hardly visible from the lighthouse at a distance of about 3 kilometres (2 miles). The structure is not an actual operating lighthouse; it’s a symbol of early 20th-century enterprise from what was once one of the most important companies in Europe and marking the location of a big factory that once manufactured electrical equipment including maritime lights.

Founded in 1882, Helios² established their presence in the town of Ehrenfeld before the latter was incorporated into the greater city of Cologne in 1888. The company once boasted a staff complement of over 2000 people, with products sold in Germany and Europe ranging from electrical generators and transformers, light bulbs, light fixtures in public spaces, and electrical streetcars. Helios also built light towers for the North and Baltic Sea coastlines, including ones at Roter Sand (Weser river estuary), Borkum and Wangerooge (East Frisian Islands), and Sylt. The onsite lighthouse in Ehrenfeld was constructed as a testing facility and never used as a navigational aid or marker. The company overextended its financial reach until Berlin’s AEG³ purchased Helios in 1905. Manufacturing operations in Ehrenfeld ceased in 1930, bringing a final end to Helios’ business presence in Cologne.

The present-day buildings which remain are used as office- and art-space. As historical landmark, the “Helios Leuchtturm” remains as part of the urban heritage in Ehrenfeld and Cologne. If the people in both borough and city have any final say in the matter, the lighthouse will never have to go out.⁴

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