#495: Shots in Kreuzberg, Ebola in Berlin, building on Tempelhof
Party tonight y'all!
Hey 20 Percent,
I can’t believe I’ve written 247.5 newsletters since we launched 20percent.berlin nearly five (5!) years ago. What a crazy ride it’s been. And while I’d like to congratulate my partner in this, Maurice, I’d also like to thank you, our readers for sticking with us.
My first love was Star Wars but news may be my second and I’m very glad to have carved out this niche in this ever-changing city.
We are of course celebrating our 495th issue tonight at Geist im Glas in Kreuzberg starting at 7pm. We’ll first record this week’s podcast LIVE followed by mingling or networking or whatever it’s called these days. I’m going to try to do only limited drinking.
If I can’t thank you in person tonight then I’m thanking you now. Here’s to another 495 issues.
Andrew
PS: 100% Funny, the 20percent.berlin comedy night, is back June 18 at Berlin’s best standup club: Downstairs Comedy Club. Vincent Pfäfflin, Žana Fejzić, Dan Stern, Dinara Kerey and Masud Akbarzadeh hosted by 20percent.berlin’s own Andrew Bulkeley. TICKETS HERE.
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One patient is not an epidemic, Andrew
We started this newsletter during the Covid epidemic and now Berlin has at least one Ebola patient — an American doctor who caught the terrifying disease in the Republic of Congo, according to Tagesspiegel. The doctor was flown in early Wednesday and is being treated in a special isolation ward at the Charite hospital’s Virchow campus in Wedding. The doctor is a medical missionary, according to Reuters, and caught the disease during a current outbreak that is suspected of killing 131. His wife and four children tested negative for the virus but are also being observed under quarantine in Berlin. The US asked Germany for assistance because the flight to Germany would be shorter than to the US.
The latest idea for Tempelhof
Consider it early campaigning for September’s Berlin election: Celebrity architect Hans Kollhoff and real estate developer Hamid Djadda presented an alternative plan Wednesday for building 21,400 apartments on Tempelhofer Feld, 30% of which would be for low-income renters, according to RBB24. The apartments would be built using standard processes and materials to accelerate approval and construction while lowering costs — and occupy one-third of the former airport’s land. Berlin voters in 2014 prohibited any new construction at the former airport through a referendum that then became law. Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) has pledged to launch a new referendum to lift the moratorium and the current Berlin government launched its own design competition that yielded six concepts for Tempelhof’s future. To build or not to build will be a common refrain during this year’s election.
Shots fired (on Urbanstrasse)
My grandmother grew up in Chicago during prohibition and said she once had to leap under a restaurant table for protection because Al Capone’s gang was in a gun battle on the street. And about 12.30pm Wednesday, a would-be assassin on a scooter shot into a VW on Urbanstrasse in X-Berg, apparently hoping to hit the driver, according to Tagessspiegel. The five men in the car were unharmed and belong to Berlin’s Remmo crime family. Police were unable to find the shooter but stopped the VW and took the four remaining men in the car into protective custody. Shots are fired almost daily in Berlin and police say the violence is linked to territorial battles as well as attempts to extort protection money.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
👴🏽 Is 70 the new 67? Retirement age going up?
Factoid
Developers built almost half as many apartments and houses last year in Berlin as Kollhoff is proposing to build at Tempelhof, or about a third less than in 2024, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg statistics office. 11,027 residences were completed in Berlin last year including 9,524 flats and 804 single- or rowhouses, down from 14,632 in 2024. The last two Berlin administrations have pledged to boost the annual number of new apartments to at least 20,000 and have proposed various laws but have obviously made little progress — they have yet to even come near the 20,000 goal.
🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗
🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify