“In the 1970s I lived in Wollishofen worked at the Sihlpost back then, mainly at night, preparing packages.” One evening, a colleague told me about the Patti Smith concert on October 12, 1976. She was able to work it out that we could leave work earlier that night.

I was about thirty years old at the time. We got to the concert a little bit late, stood in back and witnessed an act of sabotage with teargas during the performance. A lot of people ran away, but we simply stood on the sidelines—it wasn’t that bad. I don’t remember a lot of details anymore, but we enjoyed the concert.

Proposal for the use of the Rote Fabrik as a cultural and leisure center, 1976. Source: Tages-Anzeiger-Magazin no. 26/1976

Back then, the Rote Fabrik was not as organized as it is today. there was a small café in the Shedhalle that I went to sometimes. Later, I worked at the Rote Fabrik—serving drinks at concerts, among them, also at the second Patti Smith concert in 2010 at the summer stage. I was outside and was just about to tell her that I had also been there at the first concert in 1976, but then she was already gone. Louis from the Ziegel restaurant in the Rote Fabrik was an important figure—he had a very good memory and for a lot of questions, he was the right person to ask. Sadly, he has died in the meantime. He was like a living archive.

Katinka Hagen was born in England. She met a Swiss man in Switzerland with whom she had two children—in the meantime, her grandchildren are already grown up. After a first period in Wollishofen, she lived in Zurich, mainly in District 4, in Erismannhof, among other places. She currently lives in a complex on Feldstrasse and still goes to every FC Zürich soccer match.