My Berlin:
Attempting to Rediscover the Route I Commute
On the first bus ride from Tegel airport to the apartments at Kulmerstraße 47, I was immediately struck by the newness of Berlin. In Prague, the history of the city was visible in the Soviet panalaks that stood in the suburbs like giant dominoes and cast giant shadows across the nature park and the road into town. It was visible in the black sandstone, the shrines to martyrs, and the buildings whose renaissance facades were falling away to reveal gothic skeletons. I was jostled by tourists and bounced over cobblestones, and the narrow streets could either be intimate or suffocating depending on the weather. Berlin invoked none of these feelings. I arrived expecting them, and instead I felt the newness (comparatively) of the buildings and the enormous scale of the city.
Driving away from Tegel, we crossed highways and busy roadways that indicated, by my understanding, that we were outside the city center. I would later learn that this actually just meant we were between neighborhoods. Berlin the city-state currently includes neighborhoods that used to be their own small cities, and the regions between these areas have their city-limit feel still even though they cris-cross the city. In wandering these regions, one finds highways, railways, construction sites, and massive stores such as IKEA or Bauhaus. In a city where the center became the outskirts, refocused in the center and is now moving east, it seems appropriate that these areas of stitching between the old cities patched together are present all throughout the city.
As we drove farther into the city, I noticed residential areas in which apartments were clustered around courtyards or playgrounds. Still farther in the city, the apartment buildings would have their own courtyards, but here the buildings surrounded patches of green or of cement that were visible from the street and accessible via open pathways, albeit small ones. The buildings had their balconies and doors and occasional decorative trim facing the courtyards; that their backs were to the road was evidenced by the small windows, plain walls, fences, piping, and trees between me and them. I would think of these buildings often as a reference when looking at the re-settled tenement buildings I encountered near school.
Kulmerstraße 47 occupies a triangular plot of land and is one construct segmented into three buildings. Two of the buildings are attached, estranging the third which shares its ground floor with a Korean restaurant and opens onto a gated driveway. The buildings form a crescent around a small parking lot and an island of trees and plants. The wrapping shape gives the building an inside that faces away from both of the main roads that define the triangle. My room is situated on an inside corner, which means that I get sun all morning but shade all evening. It also means that neighbors across the courtyard can see into my windows unless I draw the shades, which was the realization that first prompted me to think about privacy or lack of in this building.
Previously, I’d always lived in shared apartments with no private space due to my 3 or 4 room-mates. Here, I assumed that having a single would afford me more privacy. To some extent this has been true; I don’t have to share my kitchen or my entrance hall with anyone. That said, I know that friends and acquaintances walking across the courtyard look up to my windows to check if I am home and what I am up to. As it has gotten warmer, I’ve opened the windows to let in the sun and to cool the fan-less apartment. Doing so, I have realized that the curve of our building traps scent and magnifies sound. I can smell the sausage or curry cooking on someone else’s stovetop. I can hear music from my neighbors’ radios, as well as their televisions and their telephone conversations in all different languages. This means, of course, they can hear mine as well, so I try to live quietly as possible.
The final side of the triangle surrounding our building is a street that doesn’t allow cars more than half-way down it. Its other end opens up to a public toilet, that always stinks to walk past, and a series of confusingly crossing bike-lanes on a large patch of sidewalk. To walk to three of the Bahnhofs that are closes, one has to cross these bike-lanes, and the experience can be a stressful one because they were laid down with no thought of leaving a place for a footpath.
The high buildings on this road effectively close off the open side of our building. They are mostly residential buildings, but the few that are closest to our building are industrial commercial buildings, which make that area dark at night and unwelcoming to walk past the rest of the time due to the high truck traffic. Inside it are an Indian food distributer, a Korean karaoke bar, a gym, and a Turkish bath. I think this is pretty indicative of the community living around us.
In the area immediately surrounding us, there is one street that I frequent on Saturday mornings. After exiting our building and passing the public toilet and bike lane labyrinth, one crosses Goebenstraße. The street is wide, which is nice because it allows for breathing room. At the same time, the traffic lights are timed such that crossing always means being stranded at the center island for one cycle of the lights. From the island are visible a tattoo parlor, a smokers’ pub, a hookah restaurant, and an excellent baklava shop. Down the road to the left are two S-Bahn stations, a famous döner stand, and a bus stop. The bridges of the S-Bahns block anything farther down the road from sight. In the other direction are smokers’ pubs, a second-hand shop, a discount clothing store, and a few Turkish groceries. Though the street continues, from the island in Goebenstraße one can only see four blocks before an apartment building bridges the road and blocks the horizon from view. As a final note, looking down one notices that there have recently been tulips blooming on the island, which adds color and makes it more enjoyable to be stuck there.
When the light finally changes, I walk down the left-hand sidewalk. This is because the right side of the street is constantly under construction and so there is scaffolding up. I don’t usually mind walking under scaffolding, but here it seems that there is always a bicyclist trying to go the other direction when I attempt it. Walking on the other side of the street, I pass a playground first and then a squat. There are always people on the sidewalk here, sitting and talking to each other about all kinds of things. The reason I come this way on Saturdays is because those are the days when there is a market at the end of the street. There is no thru-traffic; the road opens onto the wide end of a trapezoidal square. On market days, there are people everywhere. This is not like the Winterfeld market; here there are men yelling in thick accents and there are old women selling vegetables or buying headscarves. No cute handmade soaps or bath salts to be found, here are only olives and grape leaves between the vegetable and cloth stands.
With all of its scents and colors and sounds, the market can almost provoke some kind of sensory overload. Two sides of the square are lined with tall buildings, and the other side feels walled-off by the elevated S-Bahn tracks. In reality, there is a tunnel under the tracks in which the bike lanes and the footpaths become interchangeable. Frequently on market days, the tunnel smells like bread or fruit, and a few people are standing off to the side selling used things of all sorts. On the other side is a road that eventually leads into Victoria Park. Immediately on the other side of the tunnel, however, one finds an equally interesting area.
To the left is a playground that could never exist in the US. Rising out of the shadows of the S-Bahn tracks, a giant structure of bright blue nylon roping and plastic pipes invites children to climb on, under, and through it. This is the only thing in the entire playground, but the groups of children seem to pick different areas of it for themselves. On a quiet day, the place at the top is the most private place to sit. There, everyone can see you, but no one can hear a word you’re saying. From the top, one can also watch see into the yard of the building next door and into the yard of the grave-maker across the street. Behind the playground is a shaded area with “exercise machines” painted in different colors and not actually using any weights. Children run around this area and climb on these machines, but they usually prefer to chase a soccerball than do pull-ups.
Across the street are a church, a grave-maker’s shop, and a cemetery. I personally enjoy walking through the cemetery because it is a living space. An archway over the gated entrance completes the wall that sets the cemetery off from the rest of the city. Just inside, there is a small café and flower shop to the left. A rack of watering cans, a water pump, and a compost bin stand to the right. Part of the reason I enjoy cemeteries is because I enjoy wondering about the personal histories of those buried there. Also, though, the different designs of headstones and different materials used interest me because they color how a person is remembered. The fact that many graves have candles and fresh flowers at them enchants me, because this is not common in most parts of the U.S. The mix of old and new graves, trees and mausoleums is also something that I do not see so much at home, and this variety gives a texture to the cemetery that helps keep it feeling alive. I frequently see many other visitors walking through when I visit. Peaceful as it is, I always laugh to notice that I am still able to hear the merchants from the market yelling, despite the fact that they are outside the high walls and across the S-Bahn tracks.
Commuting to school, we take the U2 from Bülowstraße station. Walking to the station, I cross an intersection where the timing of the cross-walk lights always leaves me stranded on the middle island at some point. I then walk along the patch of land owned by the American church. Most of the land is covered in trees and grass, and the church doesn’t care for it so there is also constantly litter. People hang out in this area and on the church steps, frequently with their beers and their dogs. Sometimes there are old people lined up on the church steps. I feel uncomfortable that it is the “American” church, even though I am not familiar with its mission… or perhaps because of this. The building is missing the turret to one of its towers, and behind the structure hides a small courtyard park with a lake that belongs to some modern-looking apartments. The road to the church’s east leads to this park and ends. The road to the west is the one I walk along. It intersects Potsdamer Straße and becomes an open and busy area as it approaches Nollendorf Platz. Usually, though, I turn to get on the U-Bahn before that happens.
The train towards Pankow passes the American church and the park behind it. It then takes a bridge over a bunch of other rail-lines, the outskirts area where Schöneberg—its own small city until the 1920s—ends. It also passes the “beach park” and construction work near Mendelssohn-Batholdy Park. In the beginning of the semester, the constant cranes and dirt-piles visible from this stretch of tracks made me wonder what they were building. I realize now that Berlin is constantly building and re-building all over. I don’t know what they aim to do in this place and for now it looks to be a wasteland. I watch people exploring and wonder if the situation is the same as at Tempelhof and Grimmstraße, where the people intent on “planning” the park don’t realize that the people of the city have claimed the places already as their parks and don’t need it changed or officially segregated from the city through naming.
I usually read on the rest of the commute, pausing to notice the tile illustrations of old trams at Klosterstraße and the crowds at Alexanderplatz. Last semester, the commute to school was silent by social decree, and I stood the whole time because one always left the seats for the many old people commuting into town. This semester, I have noticed that people stare openly (unlike in New York) and speak if they are with people (unlike in Prague). The beggars and paper-sellers and musicians also caught me by surprise after last semester. I’ve seen that in the US but I wasn’t expecting it in Berlin. As a final note, I happen to love dogs but I always wonder when I see them on public transit. I think about people with severe allergies who share these enclosed spaces with the animals for the whole time of their commute, and I wonder whether they mind.
The train goes above ground at Senefelderplatz. If the day is nice and I am early for class, I can get off here and walk past the walls of the Jewish cemetery and under the construction scaffolding that is always there. Usually, however, I walk from Eberswalder Straße. This means crossing a precarious 8-way intersection and nodding greetings to other NYU students. I pass signs of the history of Prenzlauerberg and signs of its current gentrification. The first week walking this route, I noticed different things every day. Initially, I noticed chic steak house, the bright green absinth bar, the hot pink bicycle shop, a trendy hair salon and men’s brief store. Later I would notice Konnopke, the Alexanderplatz needle on the horizon, the two stumble stones, and the plaque to the “anti-fascist” who lived on this street. In my mental awareness as I walk this way now are also the watertower that was apparently used as a Nazi interrogation center, the squat across from Prater, the widened streets and the Mauerpark flea market.
Arriving at the Kulturbrauerei, I pass REWE and the two beggars who sit outside the door day after day. I always wonder what the appearance of the NYU students as neighbors has done to the nature of the business. Do they speak more English? Make more small sales? Collect more bottles? Sell more cigarettes? I don’t actually know. I pass the grocery store and turn into the complex to go to the school building. Recently walking this way with a friend who is on crutches made me realize just how many steps there are between the street and the academic center, and they start here. The outdoor dance floor at FRANZ lights up when the sun goes down and looks eerie when there is rain, but I have never seen people on it. The night guards have said that the place can get very rowdy in the evenings because of all the bars. Usually I pass through while the bars and clubs are still empty. I also usually go in this same entrance to the complex, though there are two others. Walking this route, though, I see people grocery shopping, delivery trucks passing through, tourists exploring on bicycles, a group of indignant artists standing by the door of the dance studio, and a group of NYU kids smoking on the steps outside our building. These groups are always present, even though the faces change, and they make the interior of the complex feel like a very public place. There is always traffic to dodge, and sometimes there are stares to dodge as well. Getting inside the door to the school always feels like a bit of a relief because it means entering a space where the traffic patterns are predictable and the stares come from people I can communicate with. Though soon enough I want to leave again, for a brief moment each day this bubble of English-speakers is a welcome sanctuary.
Our building really is difficult to find and not particularly welcoming for outsiders. Between a travel agency and a kitchen shop, the NYU door hardly looks like it belongs to a university. One opens the doors and immediately sees the underside of a set of stairs that almost seems to suggest turning around and leaving again. After a flight of stairs, the door into the center itself looks to be high security, but it is usually unlocked and facing an empty security guard desk. For us, this is no problem. However, when the school has sponsored events to which they invite non-NYU guests, they always seem to have a hard time finding their way in. Part of this could be that we’re tucked away, but I suspect that some of these factors scare away even those who are heading in the right direction. Should they get into the academic center, they then would have to figure out that we actually all congregate and have events on the second floor.
Part of the reason we congregate there is that the gaps between classes are too short for us to go home and return with the length of our commute. Another part of the reason is that the limited amount of internet we get at our apartments is slow and not good for watching videos or skyping. This becomes tricky because there really are no private spaces in the academic center in which one can skype uninterrupted. The empty reading room has class walls, the big room is filled with people, the classrooms are all used, and the one little corner that has no use is across from the computer closet so it isn’t very quiet. With the time difference, Skyping home is really most convenient for them went it is late at night for us. That’s generally speaking, because we’re from all over different time zones, but most people I talk to say they Skype when it is night here. Considering that the center closes around 11 p.m. and is a half-hour commute from home, staying to Skype is really not convenient or sometimes possible.
Maybe this doesn’t seem like a relevant architectural description, but it is a factor of the place that defines how we students use it. The school announced recently that they intend to install wireless in our apartments, and I found myself with mixed reactions. On one hand, it will be nice to be able to Skype from my apartment…though I’ll keep the windows closed so as not to disturb my neighbors. On the other hand, I like that people congregate at the academic center because we all disappear into our own boxes when we are at the apartments. The fact that people stayed at the center meant that there were always friends around or excuses to talk to people who weren’t necessarily friends yet. I feel like the dynamic of the place will change once there is internet at the apartments as well, although there will always be a group of us who don’t have time to go home between classes and hang out for that reason instead.
The white of the center and the plain walls are somewhat cold, but I feel comfortable there in all rooms except the small corner classroom on the first floor. I have two of my largest and longest classes in there, and it is just too small for the number of people and chairs it is expected to accommodate. It got stuffy and dark in the winter, and we are still never sure of where to set the projector because it is always blocking someone and projecting behind someone else. That room is also a little oddly placed. The plan for the building seems to be composed of loops: the art room loop and the office loop (plus that one classroom) on the first floor, and the two open loops of the ‘reading room’ and the student space on the second floor. The classrooms on the second floor could be part of a third narrow loop that also includes the kitchen and bathroom, but it is hard to say because I only ever have class in the rooms off the left wing of the hall.
Overall I’ve noticed that Berlin is neighborhood-focused, somewhat empty, and constantly under construction. I have explored extensively beyond the commuter route described in this paper, but this route was one of the first I travelled and will probably be one of the last as well. It is how I was introduced to the city, and so it is the route that colored my awareness. Some students have complained about living so far away from the academic center, but I like the neighborhood we live in. I would not want to live in Prenzlauerburg or Mitte because I already spend time there for school. When Berlin is composed of distinct and diverse neighborhoods, and my ability to ‘belong’ somewhere in the city is linked with either my place of work or my place of study, I want those to be two different places so I can belong in two different neighborhoods. I want to feel the difference between Mauerpark and Victoria Park, and I am glad to have been given the opportunity to do so.
