Whenever I go to one of the districts that formerly used to belong to West Berlin, I get the feeling that I am going on a time travel. I sense that former West Berlin has been neglected pretty much since the Wall came down. Of course a lot of help and restoration were necessary in the Eastern parts, but that also means that in other districts Berlin hasn’t changed too much since 26 years except for what we call City West which is the area around Zoologischer Garten and Ku’damm. Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with that. It just attracts my attention at times. And of course this circumstance contributes the difference between all the boroughs of Berlin and makes the city yet so interesting.
A few days ago I have been to Charlottenburg. This district is quite big and the home of e.g. Charlottenburg Palace with its wonderful gardens and some pretty cool museums and theatres. People that live in Charlottenburg have good jobs, like antiques and go to the theatre and ballet rather than to the cinema (except stuff like original versions in the Cinèma de Paris maybe). Some places seem a bit run down, but still proud of the long history of a district that was incorporated in 1920 being a large town already. There are a lot of small and cute shops that sell arts, antiques and rummage, delis that sell wine, chocolate truffles and Italian specialties and also quite a few galleries.
In the western parts everything seems bigger to me. The streets seem bigger, even the buildings seem bigger, while in the eastern part everything is divided into small sections and the streets and buildings seem smaller. (Although I am pretty sure I must be mistaken. I mean, how could this be possible?) If I give some thought to it, there might be several reasons, the first of which does not have anything to do with an unequal development after the Fall of the Wall but long before. Both Charlottenburg (former West) and Prenzlauer Berg (former East) for example have old buildings. Prenzlauer Berg is dominated by old buildings many of which derive from around 1900. But it has a short history as a housing area compared to Charlottenburg. A lot of houses were built after a couple of master plans in a short time (especially from 1889 to 1905) in Prenzlauer Berg because Berlin was growing and people needed space. So it was adopted first and then covered with buildings. Charlottenburg in contrast had been developing and expanding as a town of its own for centuries before it was added to Berlin. So it brought the structure of a complete town with it whereas Prenzlauer Berg was transformed from an agrarian spot into one with houses when needed.
The second reason might be that after 1990 the former East was more attractive to investors because the properties weren’t expensive and there were a lot of them. So we had a lot more construction activity here than in other parts of the city.
The third reason might be that old houses in e.g. Charlottenburg still have their old plastering whereas in Prenzlauer Berg we have smoothed fronts which are furthermore coloured. So a row of red, green and blue houses with smoothened facades might look smaller than those with stucco in light yellow and white.
So… these thoughts in mind I lingered around Stuttgarter Platz the other day, which is one of those parts I do not go to very often because I do not feel too comfortable there. But then the good thing about Berlin is that even if you’re in a place you do not want to stay or don’t feel comfortable with, you just turn around the next corner and might end up in a whole different world. And just around a corner in Windscheidstraße you will find the small place of refuge you might have been looking for: the Windburger. Food places in Berlin tend to be named after the street they’re located, so that’s where the name originates from.
The Windburger is a small burger restaurant with about room for twenty people. You get in, order your burger at the counter, pay and get a pager that lets you know when your burger is ready. There is a big variety of burgers, of course also veggie and different sizes. But another thing you do not want to miss is the homemade fries.
The little snack bar has yet another special feature. Every time I get there they play 90’s music. As a German I know that the whole rest of the world makes fun of us because there is so much 80’s music played by radio stations and clubs and places. But Windburger seems to be ahead of the times.
gruß, heike.
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