Demolition of the Judengasse

By the end of the 1880s the Judengasse had been demolished. Except for the house Grünes Schild, the family home of the Rothschilds which was preserved as a museum, the last old houses were torn down. While the northern part of the Judengasse had already been rebuilt in more spacious style after the destruction by the French Revolutionary troops in 1796, the cramped and dilapidated houses in the southern part were pulled down between 1840 and 1887 as part of an early urban renewal programme. In 1885 the Judengasse was renamed Börnestraße after the well known poet Börne, who was born in the Judengasse in 1786. Although the Frankfurt Jews were free to live anywhere in the city, intermittently at least from 1811 and finally from 1824, the old part of the Judengasse or Börnestraße and its immediate surroundings still remained a popular area to live for less wealthy Frankfurt Jews. This quarter also continued to house most of the facilities of the Jewish community. From the mid19th century many prosperous Jewish citizens moved to the highly respectable Westend quarter.