Vesterbro/Kongens Enghave

This guide to Vesterbro and Kongens Enghave in Copenhagen opens with writer Tove Ditlevsen, born here in 1917 into the working-class neighborhood behind Central Station that the whole city once knew for one thing: legalized prostitution along streets like Istedgade and Halmtorvet, regulated by Danish law from 1874 until brothels were banned in 1901. You'll hear how Ditlevsen, a docker's daughter, turned what she noticed growing up into a novel Danes still rank among their best. Further south, the guide follows Kongens Enghave from royal hay meadow to dockworkers' harborfront and a 1924 Ford assembly plant, tracing one district across two very different centuries.