Zur Meerenge - how close to the sea are we?

Today, as I walked along the Rheine, a curious sign caught my eye. Painted on the facade of a narrow building on Rheingasse - visible from the Oberer Rheinweg through the Reverenzgässlein - an unexpected house name made me wonder about the history of this place. 
The Rhein flows all the way to the North Sea, yet what possible connection could a house on a narrow Kleinbasel street have to a strait? 

Zur Meerenge = To the Strait
Meer (sea) +  Enge (something narrow)

House "Zur Meerenge" Photo: D.B.-M. March 2025

House "Zur Meerenge" Photo: D.B.-M. March 2025

House "Zur Meerenge" Photo: D.B.-M. March 2025

"Meerenge" Image from: https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Meerenge

Wondering about the name "Zur Meerenge," the first thought that crossed my mind was a fantasy about an imagined captain sailing the seas, whose wife might have lived here, watching the river from the top terrace, awaiting the seaman's return home ...

Yet, after checking some historical sources, I learned that the strait that gave the house on Rheingasse its name has nothing to do with any of the world's seas. Instead it is a metaphor that goes back to medieval time when the Rheingasse - one of the three streets parallel with the Rhine - used to be the main thruway in Kleinbasel. Connecting the bridgehead at the north-west (today's Mittlere Brücke)  with one of the city gates (former Riehentor), it was wider than other streets. At Reverenzgässlein, the Rheingasse started to bend and to narrow as it continued in front of what would today be houses bearing numbers 53 and 55, only to become wider again as it reached Lindenberg. This narrowness was corrected in 1855-1861, when the two houses were demolished, never to be replaced by new ones. The physical strait / Meerenge / disappeared, yet the name remained.  In the second half of the 19th century, a running fountain built here was also called Meerengebrunnen.  After it was dismantled in 1901, the only reference to the former Rheingasse bottleneck seems to be the name of the house at Rheingasse 51.

View of the Rheingasse behind the "Meerenge." Photo: Staatsarchiv BS / AL 45, 1-59-3 From: https://shorturl.at/SefDe; no date.

Ryhiner plan, 1786 Kleinbasel and Rheingasse as the first street next to the Rhein. From: https://shorturl.at/EjDe8

Rheingasse today, Kleinbasel, with Rheinweg promenade laid out in the 19th century. Map from: https://shorturl.at/YLmfa

Street as a water body ... in this case it did not connect two seas, but was a narrow part of a medieval thruway connecting two important nodes in Kleinbasel: the historical bridgehead and one of the city gates.

​Just a stone's throw from the Rhine, "Meerenge" cannot but evoke far away seas ... Happy I noticed the name on the house: now I know one more German word, and have also learned a bit more about Kleinbasel's history.

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