Here are two views of narrow streets in old Frankfurt.  The one on the left is a restored version of the old style; the other one is an old postcard of Rapunzel Lane.  There is today a Rapunzel Lane just past the Marketplace of the old city––perhaps the same street?  When I photographed that narrow street I failed to write down its name, but it's in the right vacinity to be the same one.

Being there helps you to visual how it must have been before cars.  Imagine wooden carts and wagons, and carriages being pulled by horses––the rattling of the wheels against cobblestone, and the clip-clop of hooves.  I wonder if it was noisier than today's traffic?   (Pedestrians beware, even back then!) 

The little streets were also rather dark even on a bright sunny day because the rays of the sun just didn't reach down into them.  Gloomy days must've really been bad!