N Still there, the last pharmacy in Hamburg’s Steilshoop district, but you have to find it first: arrows on the signs with the familiar red A point the way. They lead through a labyrinth of construction fences, scaffolding and wood-clad tunnels, through an almost empty shopping center, right through the massive construction site for the planned U5. Then you arrive — at Dorothea Metzner’s pharmacy, one of the last medical anchor points of the high-rise housing estate.
Steilshoop sits like a detached island in the north of Hamburg: hard to reach, poorly equipped and poorly regarded. About 20,000 people live in the district—with far more children and elderly than the Hamburg average, far more people with migrant backgrounds, and far more who rely on basic security benefits.
In the late 1960s, the settlement was designed as an urban and car-friendly utopia. Two rows of eight housing rings each run in a shallow V toward the former heart of the quarter — toward the shopping center, once nicknamed “Disgusting EKZ” by the boulevard.
On this site lies Dorothea Metzner’s pharmacy. What was once a somewhat functioning neighborhood supply center has suffered for years from the rotting substance and increasingly from vacancy. Today influencers come here and take pleasure in filming the crumbling façades, water damage, pigeon nests, the litter and the empty corridors.
A Massive Construction Site Makes Everything Even Harder
In principle, much should get better: an urban redevelopment area was declared, the shopping center is to yield to a nicer new building. And: thanks to the U-Bahn line 5, the district should finally be connected to the rail network. Until now, only buses carry people from here to the rest of Hamburg.
But until then, everything is worse than before. Such a subway construction is laborious; only sometime in the 2030s is the station expected to open directly at the new EKZ. Especially for the elderly, the paths between dirt and scaffolding have often become too long, Metzner says.
On this Friday morning, the pharmacist is already ready when the Green district councilor Myriam Christ storms in around ten o’clock to inquire. The two women go into the small office at the back of the shop. There, Metzner now spends more time than among the wooden medication drawers: at the moment she is more of a crisis manager than a pharmacist.
She has been working here since 2004; in 2019 she took over as the owner from the previous owner who stepped back due to age. It was a conscious decision. For the pharmacy, but also for the district. She cannot understand the stigma attached to it. “People here are really nice,” she says. She appreciates the people who come to her. And back then, in 2019, she did not yet perceive the situation as so catastrophic.
The people here have no lobby
Dorothea Metzner, Pharmacist in Hamburg-Steilshoop
Steilshoops last pharmacy owner is one of the loudest voices when it comes to the district’s medical emergency. Metzner protests, gives interviews and is present on the ground. Today she is glad that someone from politics is coming. She needs advocates, for herself and for the district. “The people here have no lobby,” she says.
The native of Cottbus is someone who stays calm even when she speaks about her anger and explains how the situation has intensified in recent months. Her business has long since become a receptacle for the district’s medical emergencies. She says: “If I leave, the work here ends.”
Doorbells Bear the Names of Abandoned Medical Practices
The doorbells on the former medical house next door still bear the names of the now-abandoned practices. At the start of the year the last large practice closed overnight; it belonged to a chain that had gone insolvent. People would have stood in desperation in its sales room—without patient records, without continued care. Metzner spent hours on the phone, searched for spaces in the surroundings, mostly without success.
While Hamburg is statistically considered oversupplied, Steilshoop has experienced a shortfall in care: in 2021 there were four practices with more than ten active general practitioners. Now there is only one general practice and one pediatrician in the entire district.
Uncertain rental arrangements, expiring contracts, and dilapidated practice spaces deter many practices. For the pharmacy, the situation has become existentially threatening: with the doctors gone, prescriptions vanish and so do the revenues. Yet Metzner continues to pay more than 50 euros in warm rent per square meter to the owner of the site. If something does not change soon, she will no longer be able to sustain herself economically.
The Green Party politician Myriam Christ listens to all of this, scribbles on a college block, and sighs again and again. She is the health policy spokesperson for her faction in Wandsbek, the district that also includes Steilshoop. “We have little leverage at the district office,” she says apologetically. The next higher level is responsible, especially the Social Welfare Authority.
For years a Danish investor allowed the shopping center and the apartments above to decay. In 2022 a new owner took over and announced the renovation. The city designated the redevelopment area. The winning design for the future shopping center shows a showpiece district made of brick and glass with green roof terraces and open arcades.
Since 2022 the city has been in talks with the owner; two weeks ago an agreement was reached and a renovation contract was signed, at last. First, as is now known, the doctors’ house is set to be converted into a residential building.
Where exactly the last tenants of the doctors’ house, the pediatrician and the pharmacy, should go during these phases is not yet publicly known. An “interim solution” is being discussed. Metzner hopes that the pharmacy, doctors and social services can be consolidated in a central container complex in the meantime. She has already checked the costs and feasibility on her own; she has been campaigning for years.
Implementing the container solution would probably be up to the city—and the city remains tight-lipped. The renovation agreement has not yet been published. Inquiries to the media have gone unanswered.
Interim solution, that could also mean something else. Metzner leads the Green politician Christ through the construction site to the other side of the shopping center. Here the owner has offered her a compensation area: the former sports betting shop is just as derelict as the bar next to it.
Inside, cables hang freely from the open ceiling. Large stains on walls and floors testify to water damage. The moving stairs have been out of operation since 2022. A forgotten note hangs on a glass door, informing about a vaccination appointment from four years ago. “You could film a horror movie here,” says Metzner.
If the pharmacy were to move into this part of the shopping center, it would probably only be for a short time: from 2028 large parts of the old center are to be rebuilt and newly constructed. In the new shopping center, there should also be another floor where doctors and other medical infrastructure can be housed. Somewhere in the 2030s it could be ready for occupancy.
For Dorothea Metzner, all of this remains a distant utopia. “I basically just want to run my pharmacy,” she says. She fights for its preservation. But also for the people here on site. “It cannot be that in a wealthy city like Hamburg, a district sinks so much.”
