THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD FAMOUS STREET

Before becoming the Bahnhofstrasse of today, the railway was operated in 1847 as the Spanish Brötlibahn (railway), as well as the station which has remained in the same place as the main railway station or "Hauptbahnhof". Earlier in 1838, the Hotel Baur en Ville had already opened on 24th December at the Paradeplatz; today it is called Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville. After years of discussion about the relocation of the main railway station, in 1854, the decision was made to keep the main station in place. The planning of the new link between the main station and Paradeplatz began. It was seen as a more 'cosmopolitan' solution, and the construction started in 1864, when the ditch was filled up around the water area, which were called Fröschengrabens (frogditch). In 1865 the Bahnhofstrasse between Paradeplatz and Central station was opened to public. The original unpaved roads from decades before were reconstructed as lawns and local streets, until today those traditional pathways developed to be commercial roads as conceptual boulevards.

 

Picture: Obere Bahnhofstrasse um 1900. (Source: wikipedia.org, Walter Baumann, Orell Füssli Verlag, Zürich 1972)

Picture: Untere Bahnhofstrasse um 1920 vom Bahnhof Richtung Süden. (Source: wikipedia.org, Walter Baumann, Orell Füssli Verlag, Zürich, 1972)

In 1868, the photographer Johannes Ganz was the first to build a store at Bahnhofstrasse 40. Later, up until the First World War, many others followed and there were more commercial buildings. In 1899, Jelmoli the first department store, opened on the 16th of September. In the 1880s, the upper part of the Bahnhofstrasse (between Paradeplatz and the Lake of Zurich) had been built. From the beginning, the Bahnhofstrasse was also home of the banks. In 1856, the 'Schweizerische Kreditanstalt' (today Credit Suisse) was founded and its well-known building was built between 1873 and 1876 at the Paradeplatz. Then the Zürcher Kantonalbank was founded in 1870. In 1869 the Volksbank changed its address and moved to the Bahnhofstrasse in 1928. The Bank Julius Bär was founded in 1890, and the Schweizerische Bankverein in 1889 moved two years later to the Bahnhofstrasse. (same here) The UBS, originally called Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft, moved to the Bahnhofstasse in 1907 and Bank Leu (founded in 1755) followed suit in 1915.