Frankfurt, Germany, has been nicknamed Bankfurt for decades.
As the headquarters of Germany's big international banks, their skyscrapers still dominating the city center, and more recently as the seat of the European Central Bank (ECB), that nickname is not too far off the truth.
It was no surprise then, that the worldwide Occupy movement appeared in Frankfurt, too.
They had a great location on the wide green space right in the middle of the central banking area, next to and underneath the huge Euro symbol the world knows from news reports about the Euro crisis.
The camp managed to hang on through the winter of 2011 to 2012. In August of 2012, the camp was removed after the City cited health concerns.
The one block green space was fenced in, but the walking path through the middle was left open. Not that it is any pleasure to cross the space on a narrow path with fences on either side.
The feeling has something distinctly East Berlin ca. 1980 Iron Curtain about it, sans the vicious guards with their equally vicious dogs.
At the north-east corner of the green space, is the current HQ of the European Central Bank, with an information/souvenir shop on the first floor. The shop attendants sell coins, trinkets, blocks of shredded Euro notes, as they look out on the fences.
Just five or six yards further, a burly security man guards the ECB entrance.
Kitty corner from there is the Euro Symbol, and on any given day, there are not just tourists having their picture taken under the massive sign but there is guaranteed to be a CCTV camera or two.
On the lovely day in September, when we made another visit to Frankfurt, there was a line of some twenty TV cameras, the ECB was holding yet another debt crisis meeting.
Back to the entrance of the ECB. There was a card table next to it, where Occupiers handed out a flyer. The security man did not bother them.
He had his eye on the price. You need to know that the sidewalk between the street and the ECB door is about eight yards wide.
A comfortable, pedestrian friendly sidewalk. Had it not been for the latest, shiny black, model 600 or so Mercedes parked smack dab on the sidewalk.
Its Euro-diplomatic license plate let it be known that this was the ride of the chief of the European Central Bank.
We found it ironic that the machine was sitting on the sidewalk and that the man on the street had to navigate around it.
[Update 11/2015] The European Central Bank has moved to its glorious new high rise further upstream of the river Main. The green space fences are gone, and the grand Mercedes of the ECB chief does not block the sidewalk any more.
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