The Hauptwache is the main square of central Frankfurt, where the Zeil shopping street meets the inner ring road and the metro and S-Bahn converge underground. The square is named for the small Baroque guardhouse at its centre — a 1730 building that was Frankfurt's police station for almost a century, now used as a café. The building was moved 5 metres south on rollers in the 1960s when the underground station beneath it was built — and then put back in place.
The square itself is mostly modern paving and not particularly attractive, but the surrounding buildings — the Katharinenkirche (St. Catherine's Church), the Frankfurt Galeria department store, the Zeil Galerie — give it a sense of being the city's true centre. The underground food court at Hauptwache station is busier than any single restaurant above ground.