Adorno-Ampel

About

The Adorno traffic light (German: Adorno-Ampel) is a traffic light artefact in Frankfurt, which has become one of the city's landmarks. The traffic light is located on Senckenberganlage, a street which divides the Institute for Social Research from Goethe University Frankfurt. Local intellectual figure Theodor W. Adorno requested its construction after a pedestrian death in 1962, and it was finally installed posthumously 25 years later.

In 1951 the Institute for Social Research moved into a new building on Senckenberganlage. On March 12, 1958, Adorno wrote a letter to the University outlining dangers of crossing the street, which led to police chief Gerhard Littmann marking a pedestrian crossing. On November 29, 1961, Adorno demanded "a bridge for pedestrians over the Senckenberganlage or a diversion of all traffic". In 1962 a person was killed in a traffic accident in the Senckenberganlage area, which led to Adorno writing to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung demanding "traffic lights in the whole university area":

When crossing the Senckenberganlage, near the corner of Dantestrasse, one of our secretaries was run over and seriously injured after a passer-by had had...