The Lock Quarter (2)
As can easily be seen on the scale models of Neuchâtel Town on display at the Art and History Museum, this situation lasted till the first half of the XIX century. At this time in fact, the town councilors decided to divert the river toward the lake by a tunnel dug under the castle's hilltop, above the Lock Quarter.
Deprived of the waterway that had carved it out, the small Lock valley nevertheless kept its name but lost its rural character. The residential houses gradually replaced the vineyards, meadows, springs, family gardens and orchards that had turned the left river bank into an ideal walking area for townspeople, whereas the picturesque craft workshops disappeared as well from the south bank where they had been set up to profit from the presence of the water and the hydraulic energy it created.
In the second half of the XIX century, the Lock Quarter slowly became an authentic working-class neighborhood of Neuchâtel, then spreading itself to the North by the Escaliers de l'Immobilière (Property Stairway), creating the Parks Quarter that still overlooks it today. Continually self-assertive, the Lock Quarter has become the fast-expanding belt of the city's business center and service-sector economy.
Jean-Pierre Jelmini, historian
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