Hamburg's Trams Vanished in 1978, but Rosettes Still Hang on Its Walls

Rosettes and Other Hidden Traces of Hamburg's Tram

Hamburg's tram network once carried 251 million passengers a year before the last line closed in 1978, and its traces remain everywhere: cast-iron rosettes bolted to façades to hold overhead wires, masts now repurposed for streetlights, rails buried under asphalt, and bus lanes laid in old track beds. The author maps the lost network onto today's city and notes the rosettes are unprotected, so renovations quietly erase them.