Short answers, pulled from the story.
Reeperbahn means ropewalk in Low German: Reep means rope, and Bahn means track. The street was a working ropewalk in the 17th and 18th centuries, relocated outside Hamburg's city walls from the Neustadt quarter after the inner city became too densely built.
In the early 1960s, before they became famous, The Beatles played residencies at several clubs around the Reeperbahn, including the Indra, the Kaiserkeller, the Top Ten, and the Star-Club. John Lennon later said he might have been born in Liverpool but grew up in Hamburg. A Beatles-Platz now marks the intersection of the Reeperbahn and Große Freiheit in their memory.
The Eros Center was a six-floor brothel that opened on the Reeperbahn in 1967 and was described as Europe's largest at the time. It closed in the late 1980s during the AIDS scare.
Herbertstraße is a short side street off Davidstraße near the Reeperbahn where sex workers have long displayed themselves behind windows. Since 1933, large screens block the view from adjacent streets, and since the 1970s signs prohibit entry by women and juveniles, though it remains a public road.
Udo Lindenberg recorded a song called Reeperbahn in 1978 to the tune of Penny Lane. Tom Waits included a track of the same name on his 2002 album Alice. The Police, Blue Cheer, the Toy Dolls, Digitalism, and Spector are among many others who have recorded songs about or named after the street.
The Davidwache is a police station located on the south side of the Reeperbahn at the cross street Davidstraße. It is one of the district's most recognizable landmarks and oversees the area where street prostitution is legal during certain hours of the day.