Apartment Buildings in Our Neighborhood

I think I've mentioned before that most all the buildings in our neighborhood are apartment buildings. That's pretty much the case for all of Strasbourg. Private houses are far and few between. In the smaller villages you may find single-family houses, but even there it is common for the houses to be subdivided into apartments.I'm not clear on all the details, but it seems that no one person really owns the buildings. The people buy an apartment and, by doing so, become a shareholder in a co-op that owns the building. It's kind of like a vertical subdivision with the co-op being the home owners association. The co-op splits to cost of heating and garbage and maintenance.

There can be a lot of maintenance, because most of the buildings were built over 100 years ago. The majority of buildings in our neighborhood were built from 1890 until 1914, during the period of German annexation. The French may not like to admit it, but these years of German occupation were an economic boom time for Strasbourg. First the army came and then the beaurocrats and then the speculators came to town. All brought money and much of that money was spent building up the new section of town...the German Imperial section that ran from the Kaiserplatz up to and including our neighborhood.Today, the Kaiserplatz is called the Place de Republic. The streets all have French names. But the buildings remain.All of the buildings are masonry and all were made to last. It's like they were all built by the smartest of the three little pigs. Some are made from red bricks, some are made from limestone, and others are made from big blocks of pink sandstone - the same kind used to build the cathedral.

The other thing you notice about these buildings is that they all have balconies and big windows. They were made for the times before air conditioning, when the only cool air was in the evenings, and you had to either get out into the evening on your balcony or bring it in to the apartment through big windows.

Today, for the most part, there is still no air conditioning. The old windows and balconies serve just as well in 2006 as they did in 1906. The stairs still serve too, as most of the buildings have not been retrofitted with elevators. If you live on the top floor you may still have to go up 5 or 6 flights of stairs. Imagine doing that 4 or 5 times a day with your groceries and your children.