City history: At the intersection of Nordstraße/Nordwall in 1965

Last year, the photo series reported on Nordstraße as it appeared to the viewer in the inner city circle around 1910. Now, in the series "Historical Photo of the Month", the Bocholt City Archive is devoting itself to a section of the street further to the north, the picture of which was taken a few decades later, in 1965.

The photographer placed himself in August 1965 on the eastern side of the Nordstraße, approximately opposite the Nord-Apotheke, which was abandoned three years ago. It can be seen that the Nordstraße immediately before the Wallstraßen is still dedicated to motor traffic. Traffic lights and lane markings indicate this. Those who wanted to drive westward turned left into Nordwall at this point, and the turnoff into Ostwall follows on the right after the traffic lights. Beyond the intersection, the course of Nordstraße continues to Benölkenplatz. On both sidewalks, the deciduous trees planted in the thirties are still standing.

A few years after this photograph was taken, however, they fell victim to the expansion of Nordstraße, which then served as an access road to the planned inner city ring road. The multi-storey buildings on the left side with the house numbers 59a to 63 were built at the end of the 19th century. At that time, the entrepreneur Johann Wilms first built an apartment for his family on this site and subsequently erected further residential and commercial buildings. Half of the red bankstone building on the corner of Nordwall was demolished in October 1970 in the course of the widening of Wallstraßen. During the Nazi era, it had housed, among other things, offices of the district administration of the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization and a department of the Bocholt Employment Office. However, the right side of the building as well as the adjoining "Café Kaisereck" were to remain part of the townscape for several decades.

The latter was one of the city's traditional hotels and restaurants. Heavily destroyed in the Second World War, the owner Edmund Kalveram rebuilt it in the early 1950s and had his café house clad in white exterior plaster. In the background of the picture, the side entrance of St. George's High School with its tower can be seen.

Nothing can be seen of the buildings on the left today. In the fall of 2011, the right half of the brick building finally disappeared along with the "Café Kaisereck". The central school canteen with around 250 seats was subsequently built there.