Street signs in Mainz
Here you can find out more about street signs in the city center of the state capital Mainz.
Anyone who has ever looked for a street in downtown Mainz will surely have noticed that some street signs have a red background and others a blue one. The explanation for this is simple: all street signs that run parallel to the Rhine have a blue background. All streets that lead away from the Rhine, i.e., run perpendicular to the river, have a red background.
The historical background
The house numbering system in Mainz in the mid-19th century was very complicated and often illogical and arbitrary in the order of the numbers. Dr. Josef Anschel, a physician, recognized this problem. At a meeting of the Mainz City Council in 1849, he submitted a motion to "change the house numbers." He proposed a system that had already been introduced in Paris and Frankfurt several years earlier and had proven successful. The streets leading perpendicular to the city from the Rhine should start with house number 1 on the banks of the Rhine. The streets running parallel to the river should start with 1 in the south. All even house numbers should be on the right-hand side of the street, and all odd numbers on the left-hand side. At the same time, Anschel proposed that the plaques with the house numbers in the streets running parallel and perpendicular to the Rhine should be of different colors. The system was intended to improve clarity, especially for visitors to the city. The proposal was not initially implemented.
It was not until four years later that the proposal to change the street names was taken up again at the suggestion of police commissioner Christian Leichtweiß. In June 1853, Mayor Nack commissioned the city architect Laske to carry out the work. Streets running parallel to the Rhine were marked in blue, while streets leading to the Rhine were given red signs.