Saint Pauli

This guide to Saint Pauli in Hamburg opens with a question: why would a city banish an entire trade beyond its own walls? In the sixteen twenties Hamburg pushed its rope makers, the Reepschläger, out past the city gates onto a lane long enough for their craft, and that lane became the Reeperbahn. For nearly three centuries this was a working quarter of simmering tar and hemp dust, its hammering and stretching driving wealthier Hamburg to keep its distance.