#226: Berlin prices not the worst, Späti crisis, thieves drive into mall

Last chance to see a Kreuzberg museum — for free

It’s Halloween, so here’s a creepy ex-crematorium in Wedding which happens to be one of the venues for the Pitchfork Festival (Nov 1-4). Photo: Silent Green

Dear 20% Berlin readers,

Today, rather than offering a hot take on the current news, I point you towards some infotainment created by the data journalism kids at Tagesspiegel: An interactive bicycle theft map (sorry, there's a paywall) of Berlin, which I somehow missed when they published it a couple of months ago.

Type in your address and find out exactly how many bikes were stolen in your micro-neighbourhood between August 2022 and July 2023 — per 1,000 residents and in absolute terms. What’s the point? I’m not sure. My Schadenfreude about people on the other side of the Ringbahn getting their bikes stolen at a slightly higher rate isn’t going to improve my own mood about my bike getting nicked. It’s still fun to play around with the map, though there’s nothing surprising about the data it presents: the most bikes get stolen in the districts of Mitte and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.

Regardless of where you live — and I finally learned this after getting about five bikes stolen — get the most expensive lock you can, and you should be alright.

Proper news below!

Maurice

Thanks again to our trusty sponsor, the tech bootcamp Ironhack, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a party on November 24!

Berlin not that expensive?

Anyone trying to find a flat is going to shout at the screen when they read this: a new study (pdf) by economic think tank Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft found that Berlin’s just not that expensive compared to the rest of the country. Living costs including housing are only 5.5% higher than the German average. Out of all of Germany’s 400 cities and counties, Berlin is ranked 40th in terms of cost. The devil is in the detail, though: costs without housing were almost exactly the German average, while housing costs alone were 17.5% above the average. Other large cities such as Hamburg, Stuttgart, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt am Main top the table but Munich is most expensive, with living costs 25.1% above average. Of course, this data needs to be taken in context. In 2020, the average Munich-dweller earned €10,000 more in net annual income than the average Berliner.

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Spätis cry for help

A cold Augustiner for the flea market. A midnight tub of Ben and Jerry’s. Where would we be without our harshly lit, stocked-to-the roof Spätis? Tabloid newspaper BZ reports that the late-night stores are in crisis, according to their lobby association, Berliner Späti e.V., due to inflation and restrictive rules about opening hours. The number of Spätis in the city has fallen to 1,000 from 2,000 in 2016. Association boss Alper Baba has appealed to mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) to give Spätis the same status as petrol stations and shops at train stations which are allowed to open Sundays. Wegner hasn’t responded, but city business dept. spokesman Matthias Kuder told BZ: “Spätis are Berlin, we carry them in our hearts! But the legal situation is also clear: On Sunday, shop doors in the retail trade remain closed.” 😭

Mall heist

Around 4am Monday morning, two unknown persons drove a car through the locked doors of the East Side Mall near Warschauer Brücke in Friedrichshain, according to police. They rode their Opel through the shopping centre, smashed the car into a jewellery shop, destroyed display cases and helped themselves to product. They dumped the damaged Opel at the shop and drove off in a getaway vehicle parked outside the mall. No details about the stolen booty have been released.

Factoid

From the museum’s permanent but-soon-to-end exhibition. Photo: Museum der Dinge

November 5 is Museum Sunday, when dozens of Berlin’s museums open their doors to the public — for free. It will also be the very last time you’ll be able to visit Kreuzberg’s quirky Museum der Dinge (Museum of Things), which has been putting on exhibitions chronicling the product culture of the 20th and 21st centuries for 15 years. The non-profit behind the museum says its rental contract has been cancelled by the “anonymous real estate fund” that owns the building in Oranienstraße 25.

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