No Birch Land – Die Birkenstraße aus THE DORF • THE MAG No. 5

No Birch Land – Die Birkenstraße

TEXT KATJA HÜTTE · PHOTOGRAPHY SABRINA WENIGER

A little bit further down the road the aroma of fresh bread wafts over from both sides. On the left side is the Yusufogullari bakery with perhaps the best Turkish bread specialties in town. On the right is Bäckerei Bulle, offering a wide range of delicious breads and rolls, which are often sold out by the afternoon. There is only one thing you can do: put in an order and come back later.

Once upon a time there were only fields and farmland in Flingern. It was only built on at the end of the 19 th century. On Birkenstraße you can still see a small part of the worker’s residential area that was created at the time. The main road divides Flingern into north and south. Starting at the Wehrhahn, where it is quiet and green at first, it crosses Ackerstraße, where it becomes more bustling and finally meets Dorotheenstraße. Birkenstraße is full of contrasts and interesting people. You can find pretty much everything here – apart from birch trees.

A little girl on a blue scooter, wearing a pink helmet and leggings with a heart print, is whizzing past a homeless man sitting on a bench in the sun. An elderly woman is pushing her trolley across the street. Hip young people are drinking coffee sitting down, but also on-the-go.

The former pharmacy right at the junction with Ackerstraße now sells Syrian groceries. In the early 2000s, one door up, used to be the shop front of “Wilde Heimat”, full of vintage treasures that delighted collectors’ hearts. Now the guys from stuf|f offer stylish men’s fashion and all kinds of accessories of the best quality: from Japanese socks and classic check shirts to Blaumann jeans.

Occupying a former bicycle shop, Christoph Wilde’s antiquarian book shop looks like a walk-in sculpture or a scene straight out of a Kafka novel. Since 2009 towers of books have been growing up to the very high ceiling. Around 20,000 second-hand books are stacked up high.

About another 35,000 are waiting in the warehouse. From morning to night here, in his castle made of cardboard covers, the Lord of the Books enters title after title into his database – for his eager readers.

Sport Thelen, Düsseldorf ’s oldest sports shop, founded in 1898 can also be found on Birkenstraße. Hockey and tennis enthusiasts travel here from near and far for detailed advice and the right equipment – because this is what they specialise in here.

The Schirmboutique is a charming shop just like from the old days. It moved to Birkenstraße more than 100 years ago. Walter Saß has been matching his customers with the right umbrellas here since 1991. Saß was actually born in Flingern – in the Flurklinik, a former hospital. He is “one of four people in the whole of Germany” who still repairs umbrellas. And when he says “I can repair any umbrella,” it is really just an observation without a hint of pride or bragging. Saß has spare parts of all types and manufacturers in stock. In his shop he also sells everything made by Knirps and anything umbrella-related: from elegant homemade men’s umbrellas with doublehardened Solingen steel, a walking stick with a bamboo handle from the 1960s, a range of French Fayet sticks – to fancy ladies’ umbrellas by Gaultier or Gucci.

A little bit further down the road the aroma of fresh bread wafts over from both sides. On the left side is the Yusufogullari bakery with perhaps the best Turkish bread specialties in town. On the right is Bäckerei Bulle, offering a wide range of delicious breads and rolls, which are often sold out by the afternoon. There is only one thing you can do: put in an order and come back later.

Aldenhoff Jewellers has been creating fine jewellery for women and men on Birkenstraße for the last 26 years – from earrings to wedding rings. The roots of the label and co-founder Ramona Aldenhoff lie in New York. This is where she returns regularly. However, the shop, flat and workshop of Ramona, who has two daughters, are all located on Birkenstraße.

Those who want to do something for their physical health will also find a genuine Turkish hammam. Here, women as well as men, but on different days, use hot stones to work up a sweat and then get a good scrub and massage on heated marble in the beautifully tiled rooms bursting with authentic ambience.

But there is more to discover: valiant little tailors sew from morning to night. There is an optician, an electrician, building services, sun shading technology, a medical supply shop, a computer shop, a launderette, barbers, hairdressers, a dry cleaner, a funeral parlour and a zoological taxidermist. Although it offers so much variety, Birkenstraße is clearly less hip than its nearby sisters, Ackerstraße and Lindenstraße, or Hermannstraße with its market and children’s playground. But then it has

remained a little bit more true to herself. In the past ten years, however, a lot has changed here, too. There is a cycle lane on each side. The cobblestones were replaced with silent, open-pore asphalt in 2012. Since then the cars roll past quietly and residents sleep better.

However, it is also obvious that no report on Birkenstraße can ever claim to be complete. This becomes apparent at the very latest when one talks with Erich Orths. He was actually born on Birkenstraße in 1930. One minute his mother was working behind the counter in the family’s grocery shop at No. 88, the next she was giving birth to little Erich with the help of a midwife, only to continue working immediately afterwards. “I was born a prince,” Erich Orths quips. His parents had just been crowned Schützenkönig and -königin, king and queen at the local marksmen festival, in 1930.

“I took part in 17 dances of honour. And we went in a carriage to the coronation ball, which was held in the grounds of the zoo.” He experienced this rather indirectly, of course. Six weeks before his birth in fact, in his mother’s womb. Along with many other reports, he has newspaper articles about his parents’ coronation spread out in the shop window of his small private museum of local history. Erich Orths has filled the shelves of the empty shop with about 200 folders and contemporary documents of the city’s events: carnival, marksman festival, football. It was his way of keeping himself meaningfully occupied during the pandemic.

The sprightly 90-year-old has fond memories of his childhood before the war: “I played football with the children of our customers in the street in front of the house.” Every 20 minutes the tram passed, at that time it was still a horse drawn carriage. “Then we’d quickly get off the street to let it go by and then we’d continue playing.” The memory makes his blue eyes flash. Back then there was a flower shop on Birkenstraße, a fishmonger, a photo shop (until the 90s) and a large bicycle shop.

From 1936 little Erich fetched cigars for his dad at Mühlensiepen, where today the Greek snack bar on the corner of Wetterstraße sells chips, gyros and portions of grilled chicken. Then the war came and as an eight-yearold Erich Orths had to organise ration coupons on Sundays from morning to night. The Ministry of Food allocated food stamps for new produce, which was then distributed amongst his parents’ customers, who formed long queues on Birkenstraße in these hard times.

During that time, despite being a supporter of the local football team, Fortuna, young Erich was not able to attend matches. The family lived in the basement of the house for part of the time, because they were bombed out three times, in 1941, 1943 and 1944. On the 17 th of April, 1945, the Americans arrived. “That was when we stayed over at Tante Tinen in Niederkassel.”

The next morning, the liberators blew up the Oberkassel Bridge, Düsseldorf ’s first road bridge – and the Orths family was stuck on the other side of the Rhine. It was only days later that they managed to paddle home in a rubber dinghy. In 1954 everything was finally rebuilt and Erich Orths took over his parents’ business. Where once Erich Orths saw the light of the day on Birkenstraße, Karin Krois-Blaschke moved in with her shop “Stauraum” in spring 2021 from Lindenstraße, selling furniture, art and interior design objects.

About art and culture on Birkenstraße entire books could be written, too. There is more to discover here in this respect than on any other street in Flingern or even in Düsseldorf as a whole. The gallerist Linn Lühn moved her own gallery from Cologne to a former drinks warehouse on Birkenstraße in 2011. Petra Rinck moved her gallery here from Ackerstraße. In 2016, the Lucas Hirsch Gallery came, too, and in 2018 the Basedonart Gallery run by Dunja Evers and Thomas Mass arrived.

Rupert Pfab moved over from Poststraße in 2017. His space, a former laundry on the corner of Ackerstraße, offers plenty of room for art. The artists Antonia Freisburger, Pia Krajewski and Antonia Rodrian have created the non-profit artist-run space sonneundsolche at No. 44. Gil Bronner’s Philara collection shows a wide variety of contemporary art. The collector arranged for the halls of the former Lennarz glass factory to be extensively renovated for this purpose. There is even art to be discovered in the basement and on top of the roof.

Neighbours include the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler e.V. BBK and the Filmwerkstatt. Film seminars are held here under the direction of Jan Wagner, old and new film treasures flicker across the screen or wellknown Düsseldorf musicians like Stefan Schneider man the mixing desk. Every summer Jan Wagner stages the “Flingernlichtspiele” on the terrace adjacent to the bistro. Then half the city hopes for a seat in the snug open-air cinema on Birkenstraße.