Langstrasse

This guide to Langstrasse in Zurich centers on a mysterious property owner known locally as the Phantom, a 72-year-old whose name few residents could put a face to. It traces his start in 1971, when he and a school friend turned a small kiosk into the country's first sex shop, and follows how that early venture became the seed money for buying up buildings along this once-notorious red-light street, block by block. You'll hear how reporters who tried to reach him came away with only a few barked words down the phone. Look along the street for the shuttered doorways that still carry his quiet signature.