One does Wuppertal not entirely wrong when one claims: Wuppertal is not a glamorous city. Rather the opposite. Wuppertal is that meaningless city somewhere in North Rhine-Westphalia, there isn’t much here. Except for a suspension railway. A suspension railway as the main attraction, that’s what a city has to do first. “It’s shit somewhere else”, one would probably say in the neighboring Ruhrpott.
But now Wuppertal is reaching for the stars – and creating gold-plated benches. The city paid 400,000 euros for the ten benches, and five custom-made gold items have already been installed. The benches are part of a “quality offensive for the city center,” says the city of Wuppertal. Many citizens would have liked more public seating to linger.
However, the new purchase did not immediately cause gratitude, but rather a wave of indignation, and that is now even nationwide. After all, the city has a mountain of debt of 1.6 billion euros. “The household is dying,” teases the NRW taxpayers’ association; “Waste of taxes” is what people on Twitter are angrily banging on their keyboards. A woman there demands that the money should have been put “in schools, day care centers or climate-friendly projects”.
Wuppertal? There’s room for improvement
A lot of ridicule and malice for Wuppertal, all somehow justified. But only at first glance. If you come back to the not exactly glamorous image of the city, the purchase could also be part of a sophisticated image campaign. In a ranking of independent cities in Germany Wuppertal is in 58th place out of a total of 71 places (at least well ahead of Hagen and Gelsenkirchen, the frugal Wuppertaler will think). The ladies and gentlemen in the city administration, on the other hand, know: there is room for improvement. And a bit of bling bling never hurt.
“These are custom-made products and not street furniture from the catalogue,” says a spokeswoman for the city. Sure: what does a city like Wuppertal want with catalog furniture. After all, in the future people in the city center shouldn’t just sit, they should sit nicely. But beware: the whole thing must not be too beautiful. The benches should fit into the cityscape. Wuppertal thought of that too – of course – and simply omitted the backrests. The budget probably wasn’t enough for comfort after all.
The gilded pews could truly be the start of something big. If you dream a bit, you can imagine a completely gilded Wuppertal: golden street lamps, golden bus stops, yes, even a golden Wuppertal suspension railway. The image of the city would definitely be polished, in the truest sense of the word. And gold is also inflation-proof. A win-win-win situation, so to speak.
It remains to be hoped that the golden benches will also do something good for the cash-strapped city coffers. Perhaps noble tourists from all over Germany will soon come to Wuppertal to take pictures of themselves on the new benches. Dusseldorf and Munich? That was yesterday. Wuppertal is now the place to be for the rich and beautiful.