Those were the days: “First the evening post night edition”, it says on the advertising sign framed in gold above the sales window of the kiosk on Darmstadt's Moltkestrasse.

In 1988, the Frankfurt tabloid was shut down 40 years after it was founded.

But the advertising sign is still reminiscent of the former mass newspaper that went over the counter at this kiosk for decades and whose headlines were probably discussed extensively on the occasion.

Rainer Schulze

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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It is thanks to Bastian Ripper and his association “Together in the Post Settlement” that the memory of the kiosk is preserved. Since 2020, the association has been committed to the reopening of the charming pavilion, which dates from the 1950s and was lovingly cared for by its previous owners. The original equipment from the refrigerator to newspaper racks to billboards has been almost completely preserved. The association wants to restore the listed kiosk and re-establish it as a meeting point for the district. Because none of the earlier six kiosks in the post office has survived. “With the kiosks, the booth chat, the random chatter, the many small everyday encounters also disappear. Small social places have vanished into thin air, ”says Ripper.The association has now been awarded one of the three honorary prizes of the Hessian Monument Preservation Prize for its commitment.

"Wellehannese-Haus" awarded

The Hessian Monument Preservation Prize is awarded once a year to private individuals and organizations who have put a lot of effort into repairing or researching monuments.

On Wednesday the time had come again: the first prize was awarded twice this year.

One went to Georg and Bettina Gröschen from Waldbrunn-Ellar in the Limburg-Weilburg district, who saved the "Wellehannese House" from the 17th and 18th centuries in the center of the village from demolition.

Friedrich, Heinrich and Michaela Kruse also took first place.

One of the second prize winners is back in the Rhine-Main area: Gerd Rixmann has restored a previously empty and half-ruined half-timbered house from 1733 in Heidenrod-Laufenselden in an exemplary manner. The building stood on its neighboring property: “As I rummaged through, I kept discovering new testimonies to the life of past generations and suddenly the desire grew in me to bring this house back to life. Not for me anymore, but for the residents of the place. ”The roof was leaking, the extension was completely dilapidated, the facade was damaged over a large area. Rixmann personally took care of the renovation. Today the baroque house is used as a social and cultural house. The social workers and the forestry office of the Heidenrod community are housed on the ground floor.The upper floor will be used in the future by the Heidenrod cultural association. Pictures show that even the historical wall painting was exposed and preserved. Rixmann revitalized the historic center of Laufenselden with the baroque house and was therefore a worthy winner, judged the jury.

Other award winners are a renovated house in Fulda, the Limburg Castle, a former synagogue in Meißner-Abterode in the Werra-Meißner district, which has been transformed into a place of learning and memorial, and an almost 500-year-old half-timbered house in Mücke-Ober-Ohmen in the Vogelsbergkreis. Two further honorary prizes went to exemplary projects in Espenau-Mönchehof in the Kassel district and Allendorf an der Lumda in the Gießen district. The prizes were awarded on Wednesday in Biebrich Castle by Minister of Art and Culture Angela Dorn (The Greens). Preservation of monuments is lively and dynamic, combines tradition with modernity and brings life into old walls, she said. “Private monument engagement and use appropriate to the building make a key contribution to keeping our cultural heritage alive and authentic.And it contributes to sustainability: with every stone, every beam, every wall that is preserved, we conserve existing resources. "

The Hessian Monument Protection Prize is endowed with 20,000 euros and was donated by Lotto Hessen. In addition, there is a separate category of honorary work, the prize money of which is 7,500 euros from the Hessian State Chancellery. Their boss, Axel Wintermeyer (CDU), was deeply impressed, "with what force, passion and expertise many volunteers have committed themselves ideally, but often financially, to protecting this historical legacy over the years and decades". Together with Lotto Hessen, the State Office for Monument Preservation launched the award in 1986.

Its President Markus Harzenetter spoke of a particularly large number of outstanding measures that had to be assessed this year.

"In dealing with their buildings, the monument owners without exception have found great solutions with a great deal of idealism, great sensitivity and admirable commitment."

Heinz-Georg Sundermann, managing director of Lotto Hessen, points out that the income from the scratch card lottery is used exclusively for the preservation of monuments in Hessen.

Since 1986, 265 winners have been awarded who have done exemplary for the cultural heritage in Hesse and thus motivated others to secure further monuments.

"This is a win for all of us."