Площадь BEATLES в Гамбурге

Вкратце о проекте создания центра Beatles информация уже проскакивала. Но интресно то, что каждый из нас может этому посодействовать. В ноябрьском номере немецкого журнала "Good Times" я вычитал о строительстве площади Beatles в Гамбурге. Финансирование проекта стоимостью более 100 000 евро передан в частные руки. Перечислив 10 евро - это можно сделать даже on-line через сайт www.oldie95.de или по гамбургским адресам №1 Music-Park, Barnerstrasse 42 и Oldie95-Ticket-Ctnter,Am Speersort 10, вы получаете номерной сертификат о своем вкладе в создание Площади Beatles. Я попросил своих в Германии сделать это за меня и вот теперь стал счатливым обладателем такого сертификата. По планам организаторов Площадь Beatles будет закончена до мая 2006.

Как известно, скульптурный ансамбль в Гамбурге будет состоять из 5 фигур - Джон, Пол, Джордж, Стюарт и Ринго. Однако группа энтузиастов считает недопустимым тот факт, что Гамбург останется без скульптуры Пита Беста, и даже организовала подпись соответствующей петиции. Сатклифф покунул группу, за год до Беста, и Бест был равноправным участникам группы, когда та выступала в Гамбурге, а Старр присоединился к ней только для последних концертов в "Стар Клаб". См. http://www.beatleshamburgstatue.com/

Hamburg facelift offers Beatles fans a glimpse of yesterday

Hamburg's red-light district is to be given a makeover in time for next year's World Cup with plans to bring to life the seedy neighbourhood where the Beatles polished their act.

A Beatles Platz is in the offing, as well as the biggest ever exhibition on the "Hamburg Sound", precursor of the "Merseybeat" which the group was integral in shaping.

Tours of the Liverpool band's haunts, from the cinema where they slept on metal beds to the snack bar where they ate hamburgers, will offer football fans something to do other than visiting the city's notorious brothels.

The port has done little until now to exploit its connections to the band, affectionately known in Germany as the "mushroom heads" because of their haircuts.

The tens of thousands of tourists who come in search of landmarks and plaques are not much catered for.

Sex has long been the top priority for most visitors to the St Pauli district which attracts an estimated 25 million visitors every year. But after a series of raids on brothels and the arrest of money-laundering eastern European gangs the authorities hope to give a more salubrious air to the brothel strip by tapping into the Beatles' legacy.

The Beatles, whose line-up included Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best before Ringo Starr's arrival, stayed in Hamburg from 1960 to 1962, spending most of their time on Grosse Freiheit street, off the infamous Reeperbahn.

"I didn't grow up in Liverpool," John Lennon once said. "I grew up in Hamburg".

Aficionados now delight in pointing out the clubs where the teenagers played gruelling eight-hour gigs for a pittance to sailors and prostitutes.

The Indra on Grosse Freiheit, where they had their first big break, and the Kaiserkeller a few doors down where they played for two months in 1960 and met Ringo, are both still open.

At the site of the Star Club, which burnt down 20 years ago, a plaque in a courtyard marks the place where the band built its reputation. Two Danish business partners and Beatles fans plan to open a new Star Club next year as part of the revival.

Those who knew the Beatles in their Hamburg days are delighted at the revival. Gunter Zint, a photographer, said: "They're really bound to this city, from the cheap places they ate, like the seaman's mission and Gretel and Alfons's cafe, to all their seedy venues. It's about time people got a sense of that."

Other landmarks about which the authorities are less keen include the police station where Paul McCartney and Best were held in a cell before being deported.

They had set light to a condom in the Bambi cinema - now a photographic studio - where they were living. At the junction of the Grosse Freiheit (literally "Great Freedom") and the Reeperbahn, city chiefs have agreed to plans to erect a Beatles' Square due to open in May, a month before the World Cup.

It is no more than a curve in the road surrounded by discount stores, burger bars and lap-dancing clubs. But it will be asphalted to resemble a vinyl record with Beatles lyrics etched into the grooves.

At the edge of the square the four band members, plus Sutcliffe, will be cast in bullet-proof glass at a cost of ?60,000. The figures will be illuminated to fit in with the neon signs that dominate the street for several miles.

"Hamburg has been very dozy about its Beatles past," admitted Markus Schreiber, the official in charge of the project. "But we could do with exploiting that image."

Ulf Kr?ger, the author of Beatles Guide to Hamburg and the curator of a Beatles exhibition to open in June at the history museum, said: "Unfortunately you can't revive that rich era, when Hamburg seemed like the centre of the universe. But you can offer a door into that world before it totally disappears."

Monday, January 09, 2006

Гамбуржцы-битломаны с требованиями аутентичности


BEATLES STATUE STRIKES A BAD CHORD - Beatles Hamburg Statue Petition Group

Sonoma, Calif. - In the beginning…there were five Beatles…and Ringo Starr wasn’t one of them. But the city of Hamburg, Germany is choosing to overlook that fact in its plans to honor the band’s contribution to the city's musical heritage. The members of what eventually became the Fab Four all said they matured as musicians and as a group during the months of all-night performances in the nightclubs of Hamburg, Germany. Now the city's establishment, spurred on by a local radio station's promotional push, plans a commemorative statue in the center of the Hamburg's bawdy and wild Reeperbahn district, where the Beatles and dozens of other Liverpool groups served lengthy stewardships. During those early years, Stuart Sutcliffe was the Beatles bassist and Pete Best was their drummer. Sutcliffe left the band in 1961 to pursue an art career but died the next year from a brain hemorrhage. Best continued with the band until August of 1962, when Ringo Starr replaced him. There have been decades of speculation as to why Best was replaced, but he had been an integral member of the Beatles during their formative years and was the drummer of record during all but the last of the band’s stays in Hamburg.

Though Sutcliffe is represented in the planned sculpture, Best has been supplanted by Ringo Starr, and a number of fans of the early Beatles are outraged by the slight. An online petition campaign is now underway to assure Pete Best's undeniable part in the Beatles’ story. ''There's no denying that Ringo Starr is the Beatle drummer most of the world recognizes,'' says campaign co-organizer Elizabeth MacDonald of Sonoma, California, ''but ask anyone who remembers the Beatles during those days and they say it was Pete who stood out even while he sat at his drum kit, behind the others. We feel it’s a huge disservice to deny him his rightful spot in the Hamburg sculpture.'' MacDonald maintains intentionally or not, the sculpture amount to a rewriting of history.

The petition already boasts dozens of signers from North America and Europe. Best himself has remained above the controversy, concentrating on touring with his current band and working on a CD due out next spring. He has no connection with the petition campaign, which is a wholly independent effort mounted by fans of Best and the Beatles. A website has been created to publicize the campaign and provide a link to the petition: www.beatleshamburgstatue.com.

©BEATLES STATUE STRIKES A BAD CHORD - Beatles Hamburg Statue Petition Group

Does this sound like such a predicament to you? If you're going to honor the Beatles use John, Paul, George and Ringo. If you're going to honor the band that played in Germany use John, Paul, Stu, Best, and George. As was said, The Beatles matured as musicians in Germany, but not as the fab four. More like the pre-Beatles, or Beatles in the making. So honor one or the other. Don't throw Stu's statue in with Ringo, DUH! They never even played together. Do one or the other, case closed. It doesn't involve a lot of head scratching from my point of view.#9

Beatles Memories to Revive Hamburg's Sin City.


Hamburg's Reeperbahn red light district is past its prime after years of economic stagnation. But now the city plans to revive the area by commemorating the role it played in shaping the Beatles. After all, John Lennon once said: "I didn't grow up in Liverpool. I grew up in Hamburg."

Architects' design for a "Beatles Square" on the Reeperbahn consisting of a black circle symbolizing a record, and lifesize statues of the Beatles in glass.
The Reeperbahn has fallen on hard times, and it shows. It looks as shabby as ever, but that's all part of the image for any self-respecting area of ill repute. What is new is that discount supermarkets and cut-price bars offering drinks for 99 cents have sprouted across the world-famous red light district where the Beatles performed in the early 1960s. Recession and a decline in its traditional clientele are taking their toll.

Getting punters has become hard work for the area's prostitutes, many of whom are complaining business is bad. A smile and a "Hello There" or "How Are You?" no longer seem to suffice. Late at night, men coming out of one of the big fast food restaurants on the Reeperbahn run a gauntlet of insistent women. "Got your strength up? Then come on!" is a standard phrase as they grab prospective punters by the arm.

"I know a lot of the girls and they tell me they aren't getting enough punters and are under pressure from their pimps," said Carlo Carstens, 52, a Reeperbahn guide who has lived in the area for 30 years. "There's been a big decline here due to the economy. People just don't have the money these days," said Carstens, drinking the local "Holsten" beer in a pub in the heart of the district. He offers weekend walking tours around the Reeperbahn and tells his clients where to go and "what areas they should definitely avoid."

Roswitha Hirschfeld, a waitress in the Caf? M?ller where the Beatles used to go for breakfast after their gigs, said: "It's changed around here and not for the better. Those big grocery stores that have opened up don't belong here. The city should be doing more to attract people here. This will soon become just a another shopping street."

Hirschfeld, who worked as a trainee in the caf? in the 1970s, is also sentimental about what seems like a bygone era. "It's not like it was 30 years ago," he said. "We had a lot more to do in the mornings, the girls came in here from the brothels for breakfast after their shifts. Now not so many come. There also used to be more cabaret shows. A lot of brothels have been shut down."

Not that there's a shortage now. Countless bars, sex shops, striptease clubs, live sex shows and transvestite clubs line the Reeperbahn and its side streets in the city's "St. Pauli" quarter. There's something for everyone. If you like wearing a leather mask, being horsewhipped and getting locked in a little cage, that's no problem, according to Carstens.

It's not just the years of economic stagnation, high unemployment and recent welfare benefit cuts that have hit business in the area, just up the hill from Hamburg's giant port. There simply aren't as many sailors around because merchant ships are becoming more high tech and require smaller crews. Besides, turnaround times for ships are much shorter, giving crews less time to blow their earnings on northern blondes and liters of cold beer.

"Sailors don't spend as long in Hamburg, Ships used to spend two or three weeks here," said Horst Fascher, 70, a local legend who managed the Star Club where the Beatles performed. "The doormen tell me the discount shops are ruining the whole scene. There are pubs where you can go and get drunk for 5 euros now."

That in itself may not seem like a bad thing, but it attracts people who don't have the cash to spend on the Reeperbahn's other attractions. A growing reputation for violence isn't helping, either. "Many people are afraid they'll get knocked over the head with a bottle," said Fascher. "There's too much alcohol, not enough culture, and no style."

For Fascher, a stocky former German boxing champion, the 1960s were the heyday of the Reeperbahn because world class rock & roll acts came to perform in the Star Club he set up with a local investor, and which featured top acts like Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Ray Charles and Little Richard.

The Beatles performed at various Hamburg clubs at the start of the 1960s, before they became famous. They honed their skills by playing mainly cover songs at the Star Club for several months in 1962.

"When the Star Club opened the Reeperbahn started to boom. The stars came and they were close enough to touch, not like these days where they're so far away they're just tiny figures on the stage," said Fascher. "When it closed it down in 1969 a light went out in St. Pauli."

"I noticed that the girls ran after the Beatles and where the girls go you get boys because they run after the girls. The Beatles were a huge magnet for the area." It was also a time of bar brawls and street fights. Fascher acted as a kind of bodyguard and fixer to the stars as well as head bouncer, and he fondly recalls how he once beat up an entire Austrian soccer team that was making trouble.

The Star Club became a thorn in the eye of local authorities worried that it was luring Hamburg's sons and daughters into an area of moral degeneration. There were frequent police raids to check that the customers weren't under age. But the city fathers now seem to have woken up to the Reeperbahn's importance as its premier tourist attraction. It is supporting a campaign to spruce the area up and make it safer ahead of the soccer World Cup starting in June. As one of the 12 cities where matches will be played, a surge of tourists is expected in Hamburg during the Cup.

The local government is backing plans by a local radio station to build a "Beatles Square" on the Reeperbahn. Round in shape and black, it will resemble an LP record, and glass statues of the Beatles will stand in its center.

Hamburg is also planting exotic trees along a stretch of the Reeperbahn to give it more of a "boulevard" feel and encourage outdoor cafes and restaurants. It is putting up CCTV cameras to discourage mugging, but will ensure the cameras have blind spots so that they don't record people going into sex shops and brothels.

"The Reeperbahn is more famous than Hamburg. When people hear the word Hamburg they think of meatballs in buns rather than the city," said Markus Schreiber, the head of the local authority responsible for the St. Pauli area. He added that Hamburg won't try to make the area any less "sinful", though.

"We shouldn't tinker with it. As long as mankind exists you'll have a demand for prostitution. St. Pauli doesn't work without prostitution, without sin, I think it's got to remain there and it can work there," said Schreiber.

He can't explain why it has taken Hamburg 40 years to start marketing its Beatles heritage. Neither can Martina Mueller, spokeswoman for Hamburg radio station "Oldie '95" which has collected over 80,000 euros to build the square.

"Liverpool has an airport named after John Lennon and Hamburg where they played for so long has nothing to commemorate them," she said. "I think what was lacking was someone to make a start and the luck of the timing."

"The World Cup will bring international visitors to Hamburg and they'll all want to visit the Reeperbahn, which doesn't look that great at the moment," she added. "Having a Beatles square will be ideal. The Star Club was their musical cradle. It will be a sign of how cosmopolitan the city is and will be an added tourist attraction. The Beatles are the best possible way to adorn this town."

City officials have their doubts whether the square will be completed in time for the World Cup given that building work hasn't started yet, but Mueller is confident it will be ready by mid-May. Current plans envisage 200 hundred strobe lights to flash around the circle, giving the impression of a revolving turntable.

The plans go beyond building a square. Mueller says Hamburg will one day have a Beatles museum and offer tours of the group's old haunts, as well as plaques where they lived and played.

Fascher, whose mother washed the Beatles' underwear in her kitchen and whose book "Let The Good Times Roll" recalls the Beatles era in Hamburg, hopes this new awareness of the Reeperbahn's glory days will help lure music clubs back into the area. "Hamburg needs something like that. The Reeperbahn used to be the Mecca of music, why shouldn't it be again?"

Architects' design for a "Beatles Square" on the Reeperbahn consisting of a black circle symbolizing a record, and lifesize statues of the Beatles in glass.

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