Five-Finger Square
The name came from the fact that from a bird's eye view the very narrow passages of the old town or rows of buildings merged like the fingers of one hand.
Regarding the natural urban planning origin, two different theories are in balance: one follows the assumption that the north gate of the Merovingian Palatinate was located on the site of the five-finger square.
[2] In the middle of the 14th century, as descriptions of the times detail,[3] a further passage called Löhergasse ran east of Goldhutgasse from Flößergasse towards the market.
Later development led to the southern part of the former Löhergasse becoming a back yard for the surrounding houses on the market, the Langen Schirn and the Bendergasse.
It was only when tourism emerged at the end of the 19th century that it was rediscovered and quickly made a popular travel destination and a frequent photo and postcard motif.
In contrast to the historicist renovations at the turn of the century, which often destroyed more substance than redeveloped ones, and the only superficial measures taken by the federal government of old town friends in the 1920s, they largely took place under modern monument conservation aspects.
The Butchers' Well had survived the war, badly damaged, and protruded from the ruins of the old town for a while until it was removed and initially disappeared into an urban depot.
[6] As part of the Dom-Römer project, the city council received an application to set up the butcher fountain on the square in front of the reconstructed house of the Golden Scales.
[7] After the rubble was cleared, the Five-Finger Square remained part of a parking lot until the early 1970s when the Dom / Römer underground station was created.
The plots on the square were unusually small and, unlike on the surrounding main streets in the old town, had not been contracted over the centuries for larger construction projects.
The pump fountain, built around 1800, consisted of a simple, ornamentless stele made of main sandstone, on which stood a boy leaning against an ornate stone water jug; the name of the fountain was reminiscent of the nearby Haus zum Fleischer (house address at that time: Römerberg 14 ), which was demolished in 1873 due to dilapidation (see picture).
), was previously known as Schuhgasse due to the presence of many wooden shoemakers, but got its modern name from the millinery in the house for the Golden Hut on the corner of Market / Goldhutgasse (Street address: Markt 31 ).
Löhergasse, which once ran east of Goldhutgasse, also got its name from the craft when Lohe, in old and middle high German still called Lö with umlaut, was used to denote tree bark used for tanning .
When the Frankfurt wholesale merchant Johannes Georg Kipp had his parents' house restored in 1924, he called the Offenbach painter Heinrich Holz,[9][11] who nonetheless oriented the traditional role of the building in the design of the facade and richly themed them with inscriptions decorated, which said: The painting below the windows on the 1st floor depicted the suffering caused by the plague - writhing figures fighting with snakes, while the painting below the 2nd and 3rd floors showed people dancing as a token of gratitude for the end of death.
The neighbouring Haus zum Hasen (English: House of the Rabbits) was almost completely identical to the neighboring Pesthaus, at least in terms of appearance, and thus probably also to be treated in the same way with regard to its time of origin.
On the other hand, the ground floor showed some peculiarities: it was not massive, but largely made of wood, apart from an approximately knee-high stone base.
His loss due to the war is also extremely unfortunate from an engineering point of view, as modern investigation methods could certainly have provided valuable information about the specific development of the half-timbered building in Alt-Frankfurt.
Apart from the narrow side, the house with its mansard roof and baroque windows looked like a product from the late 17th or 18th century, but here too the 1930s exposure brought unexpected details to light.
