Ölberg is the local place name for a residential district of the Wuppertal district Elberfeld, which forms the southern half of the Elberfeld Nordstadt. The name goes back to the fact that even in the 1920s in this quarter mainly occupied by workers – in contrast to the immediately west subsequent bourgeois Brill quarter – many houses were not connected to the public grid and the apartments were mainly illuminated with oil or kerosene lamps were.
This part of the old town is one of the largest contiguous monument areas in Germany. Most of the houses date back to the turn of the century (Gründerzeit), from the 19th to the 20th century, when housing for the working people of the prospering industry had to be created quickly.
The closed development consists mostly of three- to four-storey apartment buildings, each with its own decorative work. Most of the toilets were located halfway down the stairwell and had to be shared by all floor dwellers. The apartments were heated individually with coal stoves, oil stoves and later with gas. The small backyards were separated from the neighboring houses or the opposite houses. To take account of the mountain situation, numerous multi-level staircases were built between the houses to the valley axis and the Brill quarter. The most well-known from the Ölberg down to the city center is the so-called Tippen-Tappen-Tönchen.
As a special feature on the Ölberg some of the workers’ houses (Bergischeshalf-timbering) were clad with wooden facades, which were supposed to imitate the sumptuous, stuccoed villas of the neighborhood. However, most of the apartment buildings are built of stone, many with bay windows, balconies, some even with bell gables. Nowadays, some of the half-timbered houses are also clad in slate.
