#469: Warmer weather, broken station escalators, AfD pol fined
3% of Berlin is allotment gardens
Hey 20 Percent!
One thing I hate about Berlin is the weather. The winter weather specifically. There’s not enough snow. I no longer even mind the cold. But please more snow. I guess I’m like a husky in that case, just with a lot less energy and a longer attention span.
But as I was packing this morning for my usual weekend jaunts doing comedy elsewhere in Germany, I thought my phone was lying to me: 6 degrees in Leipzig tomorrow (that’s 43 American)? 12 degrees (54) in Kassel Sunday?
Spring will apparently make its first appearance and it’s not even March yet. The entire city will become one huge mating ritual.
To be fair, it’s supposed to be a high of 7 here Saturday and just 10 on Sunday.
Enjoy!
Andrew
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Rolling stairs kaputt
On business trips I always take the stairs in train stations (something about staying active) and it’s a good thing because most of the escalators at Hauptbahnhof and Südkreuz are now verboten because of a feared fault, according to Tagesspiegel. 42 of 54 Rolltreppen (escalators) at Hauptbahnhof and 10 of the 20 at Südkreuz will be out of service until Deutsche Bahn and the manufacturer come up with a fix — days? weeks? months? Nobody knows. Two suddenly halted during service recently and one even started rolling backwards, leading a woman to fall and injure her knee. Having had to navigate Hauptbahnhof with a stroller, I know that the elevators there are so slow that it’s almost like having no elevators. I feel for anyone with mobility issues — it’s almost like Deutsche Bahn wants you to complain about them.
Görlitzer Park now with closing hours
Over in Kreuzberg, our newest public infrastructure is still working (for now) and Görlitzer Park will be closed from 10pm to 6am at night starting March 1, according to RBB24. It’ll be open until 11pm in spring and summer. Berlin added fences to the non-fenced areas as well as two-meter high turnstiles and will hire guards to enforce the closing hours. Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is opposed to the fence and closures because it does nothing to combat the crime epidemic in the neighborhood, it just moves it into a neighborhood not only battling the crime but also unnecessary traffic because of the ill-advised A100 extension and broken Elsenbrücke over the Spree.
It was obviously an Elon Musk greeting
AfD politician Wilko Möller should be locked in some penal infrastructure: The right-wing politician said he’ll appeal an €11,600 fine he was ordered to pay by a court Wednesday in nearby Frankfurt an der Oder for a campaign poster that included a certain greeting made famous by Adolf Hitler and Elon Musk, according to the Morgenpost. The poster included a picture of a mother and a father with their arms extended to form a roof over their children, ostensibly as an homage to the importance of the family. But critics noted the stock photo had been reversed so that the man’s arm was his right (the same used by Adolf and Elon), making it an obvious dog whistle to Nazis.
Tschüß Konzertkasse 36!
We try to avoid reminiscing about Berlin in the 90s and 00s but sometimes I feel the need to record the passing of that Berlin: KOKA36, a concert ticket agent on Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg, closed this week, deep in debt. The internet eliminated the need to go somewhere to get tickets for concerts, which should have led to lower ticket prices but we all know how that’s going. But KOKA was unique because it felt intrisically attached to Kreuzberg’s punk past and buying tickets there felt like buying tickets from the artists themselves (even when it was a massive touring act). You had the feeling they at least knew the artists personally. I’m not against digital progress but I have empathy for the collateral damage.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
👁️ Crazy Niemeyer restaurant in Leipzig
🛫 The fighter project that shows the problem with the EU
🏍️ AfD should stop using Simsons at events
🛂 Border checks will continue, despite opposition
Factoid
Berlin has 870 Kleingartenanlagen (allotments) with a total 70,700 tiny gardens. They cover 2,900 hectares, or about 3% of Berlin, according to Tagesspiegel. The conservative CDU hopes to introduce legislation to better protect the sites against closure or re-use for construction — the law would only allow them to be bulldozed for cheap housing, schools, daycares or hospitals. Members must be offered equivalent space elsewhere and outsiders would also have to have access for walks. A handful of alottments have been evicted recently but the things are an integral part of life in Berlin and we don’t need the elimination of yet more subcultures. They should be protected.
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At our S-Bahn station (Bornholmer Straße) they installed posh new escalators last year. Now they're almost constantly broken. I thought Germany was good at low-tech durable things made of metal?
What is it with things breaking down here and not being repaired?
It would drive most Germans living outside Berlin up the wall if these kind of things happened where they live.