Keep your blue suede shoes behind the curb: the central German town where Elvis Presley was stationed as a U.S. soldier in the 1950s has installed three pedestrian lights with images of the American rock icon.
Friedberg is the latest German city to transform its traffic lights with famous characters - the red shows an image of the singer striking a pose at a microphone and the green depicts his trademarked hip swivel dance.
They went online this week in the town of Friedberg, where Elvis, who died in 1977, was stationed at the U.S. Army’s Ray Barracks from October 1958 to March 1960. He lived in nearby Bad Nauheim.
Friedberg, north of Frankfurt, already has an “Elvis Presley Platz” — Elvis Presley Square — and decided to add the three lights as an added attraction for the many Elvis fans who already make the pilgrimage to the town.
Transforming traffic lights has become something of a trend in Germany - the most famous are the Ampelmännchen in Berlin. Created in 1961 in what was then East Berlin, they now appear all over the united capital.
The city of Augsburg has the Kasperl puppet character in a pointed hat, Mainz has its own Mainzelmännchen, Bonn has Beethoven traffic lights and in Trier a small, chubby Karl Marx lets pedestrians know when to cross. The eastern town of Erfurt has had up to 14 different kinds of lights since the 1980s.