and sports facilities, a central square with a 100-metre high prominent "House of Chemistry" was to be built, but was never constructed due to cost. Only a large gaping trench between the main post office and the theatre complex remained in which groundwater and rainwater collected. An unusual feature was the absence of street names. Instead, all residential blocks were designated with a complex numbering system difficult for outsiders to understand (after 1990, this was abolished in favour of street names). The starting point was the "Main S-Bahn" axis. Each apartment complex has one or two digits for the hundreds place (except for the houses along the highway, all of which had a leading "0" if they were on the main road). The tens digit depended on the number of streets from the central axis. The single digit was then the corresponding building. State and party leader Erich Honecker had little interest in the pet project of his predecessor Walter Ulbricht and his chemical industry dream. Honecker focused instead on the capital Berlin and a countrywide housing programme. Not until 1989 was the town hall built, but due to the municipality's reincorporation into Halle (Saale), it never served its original purpose. The centre of the city was the Neustaedter Passage with two levels of department stores, speciality stores, the Central Clinic, the Main Post Office and the House of Services. This area should have included the town hall, but construction was held up at the time by decision makers, was interrupted several times and only finished in 1990. The "Slices" are five 18-story tower blocks with centre aisle structures which included student dormitories for the Martin-Luther-University, as well as worker dormitories of the chemistry combines Buna and Leuna. They were built between 1970 and 1975 and are now empty except for one tower block. The City Council has had difficulties to this day with the demolition of the unused towers since the Slices form the backbone of the town's architecture. In one of the Slices, the JV Hall, the administration and the New Town Passage have been extensively renovated by numerous long-term unemployed people since 2005. On the outskirts of Halle-Neustadt was also the complex of the once-powerful Ministry for State Security which is now being used as a tax office. After 1990 Following a vote at the municipal election on 6 May 1990, Halle-Neustadt was combined with the old