#306: Mailbox with Anmeldung
#306: Mailbox with Anmeldung
That January meteorite was the only thing older than the woman who yells at you to sort your trash
Dear 20 Percent,
Oh, Berlin bureaucrats. We’ve only recently gotten protected bike lanes and already the depth and complexity of what annoys our fellow Berliners about them is breathtaking. The piston-heads would prefer to keep the asphalt to themselves. The pedestrian lobby thinks it’s not getting enough attention.
And now the design-berets are annoyed — What kind of image are we presenting to the world with all these different kinds of pole designs? Sometimes metal. Sometimes plastic. Sometimes cement bumps that no one is happy with.
The taz reports that the senate has formed a workgroup to come up with a uniform traffic pole design (“bollards”, for the traffic control nuts), presumably like the phallic XXX things that seem more prevalent in Amsterdam than coffee shops.
While I’m all for branding, how about let’s first get more protected bike lanes and neighborhood streets closed to automotive traffic before we start worrying about how it all looks (as if the rubber and steel cars now gracing the areas present a homogenous picture).
But I guess you couldn’t get a job in a Berlin town hall if you got things done.
Have a good weekend, y’all!
Andrew
No kitchen, bathroom or bedroom but Anmeldung
To counter the plague of room-rentals without Anmeldung (the compulsory registering your home address with authorities), some entrepreneurs have begun offering their address and a sticker on their mailbox in exchange for €100/month, according to RBB24. The practice is especially attractive to us foreigners since we need an Anmeldung for our residency permits (and bank accounts and employment contracts) but often have to make do with accomodations without the possibility of an Anmeldung because of the disastrous flat market. But be warned: It’s illegal to register with an address where you don’t spend a lot of time, known as a Scheinanmeldung.
More people with psychological issues, more knives?
Two thoughts I had in the last week: Are there more people with visble psychological problems in the city and are there more knife attacks (the two thoughts were not in any way linked)? The answers: not necessarily and probably, respectively. The Berlin police have registered fewer forced hospitalizations for psychological reasons (690 in 2020 vs. 523 last year, according to RBB24) but an increase in the consumption of crack and other drugs coupled with the increasing densities in Berlin can make it seem like it — we’re all being forced to see more of each other. And the Charite hospital’s statistics show knife injuries have jumped from 55 last year to two per week this year (extrapolated for the full year that would be 104, or nearly double), according to T-Online. Not scientific statistics but alarming nonetheless — be careful out there.
Didn’t know meteorites got that old
A meteorite that dramatically crashed into Brandenburg west of Berlin in January, gaining lots of social media attention, was (is?) 4.5 billion years old, according to the Meteoritical Society. The meteorite is known as the Ribbeck meteorite because it crashed near a village of the same name. It was a rare meteorite known as an “aubrite” (it’s only the 12th of its kind). Parts now reside at the Naturkundemuseum. The article is a bit of a true crime read — I had no idea how much effort is put into retrieving meteorite pieces.
Germany-wide news
📣 Court to rule on legality of “from the river to the sea”
🪖 Germany, Philippines pledge South China Sea defense co-op
💉 Yes, they are still protesting corona measures
💶 The coalition is fighting over the budget. Again.
Factoid
The Berlin S-Bahn will celebrate its first 100 years from August 8 to 11 with a variety of events in Berlin and nearby Bernau, the then-terminus of the city-state’s ostensibly first electric S-Bahn. But, as the Tagesspiegel points out (paywall), the anniversary has more to do with Berlin’s divided history than the truth. First off — Berlin has had local train service since the 19th century but the steam locomotives were polluting the rapidly expanding city, forcing a need for electrification. The first electric S-Bahn was actually the Wannseebahn which ran from the destroyed Potsdamer Bahnhof (adjacent to the current Potsdamer Platz) to Lichterfelde Ost starting in 1903. But East Germany needed a reason to celebrate in 1949 following WWII and the whole Soviet thing so they picked the 1924 electrification of the Stettiner Vorbahnhof (we know it as Nordbahnhof) to Bernau route — both within East Germany — to celebrate 25 years of the Berlin S-Bahn. And it stuck. Why not? Would have been nice if even more East German traditions had been honored.
I love the cement bumps! I'd post pictures (I've taken some) but there's no way to do that here. The best thing is when they are used to keep people turning right from deliberately parking in the cycle lane while waiting for lights to change. But that's mostly in the former West. I really, really wish they would do that where Anna Louisa Karsch Str. turns right into Spandauer Str. Why do car-driving jerks collect there, because it's across from the dungeon??