![]() ![]() The powers that be opted to model the tracks after a Roman viaduct, both functionally and aesthetically. In the late 1800s, an almost fully elevated railway was added to the Gürtel to shuttle even more bodies to and from the city’s industrial ring. After it was demolished, in 1873 its site became the Wiener Gürtelstraße-colloquially, the Gürtel- a major thoroughfare utilized by the backbone of the city. While the Ringstraße created an inner pocket for the church and the ruling class, its prominent boulevard a stage for powerful actors, a concentric outer wall held the businesses, suburbs, and proletariat. There was once another fortified wall sectioning off sections of the city. And it’s easy to know its limits: where the old town walls once stood is now the famous Ringstraße, or ring road. Once walled in, this historical core-the Innere Stadt, or District 1 of Vienna’s 23 geographical designations-is where tourists are most likely to gravitate. It’s the country’s administrative, political, and economic center, with buildings like the Austrian Treasury and the gorgeous St. There’s high-end shopping streets and, in the winter, a host of traditional Christmas markets. Here you’ll find your (multiple) museums, your classical music venues, and your Spanish Riding School. In the nucleus is the old medieval city, once a camp for the Roman Empire, later the center of the European universe under the Austrian Habsburgs. The arches under the viaduct became so popular that they later attracted another set of arches: a pair of golden ones, attached to a bi-level McDonald’s, which comes in pretty handy after a night out. It also kickstarted a trend, becoming the first of many bars and venues to move into the once disparaged area, forming what today is widely considered one of Vienna’s most vibrant, thriving nightlife areas: a true metropolitan success story. In 1995, the second incarnation of Chelsea opened its doors in the Gürtel, and quickly picked up where it left off. They offered Bajilcz an open-ended tenancy agreement in exchange for a space nobody else wanted. After a court case, the space eventually closed and the team was forced to relocate.Īt the same time, Vienna’s administration was trying to clean up a rundown area that had become the city’s red light district. “We had problems with the neighbors about the noise, especially with the live music.” Because of complaints, concerts were whittled down to once a week. ![]() “People lived in the building,” says Bajlicz. The original Chelsea hosted bands with amazing names like Pungent Stench and Fetish 69, and once it gained international notoriety, attracted the likes of Die Toten Hosen and a little up-and-coming outfit called Soundgarden.īut not everyone was so enthusiastic about its arrival. ![]() (Though it’s often associated with the British football team, it was in fact named after the London neighborhood where punk was born.) A music magazine was created in conjunction with the space. | Chelseaīajlicz booked both DJs and bands, and served some Anglophilic offerings on tap. In a city devoid of places where music lovers, writers, and editors could simply congregate, Chelsea promised to be their Cheers. ![]() Vienna’s live music scene was sparse and homogeneous, and there was often a cover price. He had a vision, and the club filled a much-needed niche. Retired from soccer at the ripe age of 30, he set his sights on music, and opened the first iteration of Chelsea in 1986. But in Bajlicz, Chelsea had an owner who was all in. While in hindsight Chelsea’s current location is ideal for a rambunctious music venue, it took some time to get there-including a lawsuit, and, over three decades ago when the Gürtel was a less than desirable area, a bit of courage. The trains chugging overhead are not only unbothered by the amplified bass, on occasion they get into it, rattling some beer glasses of their own. Here, tucked under the U6 U-Bahn and flanked by heavy traffic, no one complains about the noise. Specifically, you move your popular club from a residential building in District 8 into the arches of a viaduct in Vienna’s Gürtel, defined by the massive arterial ring-road separating the city’s inner districts from the suburbs (gürtel is German for belt). What do you do when you wanna rock, but your neighbors upstairs would prefer you… not? If you’re Othmar Bajlicz, music lover, former Austrian footballer, and founder of Vienna music venue Chelsea, you don’t venture to the other side of the tracks-you go underneath them. ![]()
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