🏊 👨⚖️#517: Adlon for sale, free swimming, air-con in every tram
Almost €1 million for blackout hotels
Hey 20 Percent,
Shout out to EU party Volt for best improvement in campaign posters.
They used to specialize in cryptic posters that annoyed more than informed but this year they’ve come out screaming with one containing a tiring list of what they see as wrong with Berlin (I mostly agree).
Another highlights the solution to Berlin’s apartment problem — using Berlin’s own property companies to build lots of flats. Their “unfuck Berlin” posters are still annoying but I’ll give them credit for trying.
And their posters for individual candidates are cringe but delightfully so.
This isn’t an ad for them — they don’t have a chance of clearing the 5% hurdle to make it into government so I’ll be voting for someone else.
But I like their posters.
Listen to this week’s podcast to find out my favorite poster — from an aesthetic, not political, point of view.
Have a good, not-so-hot weekend!
Andrew
PS: If you missed it, the latest episode of our podcast is out and please visit this issue’s sponsor, Feather insurance for your liability needs.
The People’s Swimming Pool?
The Volksbad public swimming pool at Volksbühne opens today, ostensibly to protest Berlin’s lack of infrastructure spending but mostly just to give publicity to the Volksbühne and its new director. Tickets are free and can be booked (here) three days in advance but the pool at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Mitte is closed Sundays and Mondays so you won’t be able to sign up for Tuesday until this weekend. I’ll try it once, I guess. It’ll close Oct. 1.
A CDU mayor again?
Ines Schwerdtner, the co-head of the leftist Die Linke party, told Stern magazine her party would only form a coalition following Berlin’s September election with other parties willing to pursue the nationalization of privately-owned flats. The party leads recent polls but would need to link up with two other parties to gain a majority, most likely environmentalists Die Grüne and the center-left SPD. The stance may allow the conservative CDU to remain the senior partner in Berlin’s ruling coalition since other parties, including the SPD and Die Grüne, then said they were unwilling to accept the demand to enter a coalition. The only other constellation would have the CDU (polling at 18%), die Grüne (16%) and the SPD (13%) ruling together. Voters in 2021 approved a referendum to limit corporate landlords to just 3,000 Berlin apartments and force them to sell the excess to Berlin but politicians have yet to craft the corresponding law.
The 20% Suite at Adlon?
Some corporate landlords are volunteering to leave the Berlin market. Investor Fundus-Fonds 31 may soon put the Adlon Hotel on the auction block with a price tag of €280 million, according to Der Spiegel. The fund has asked its 4,000 investors for approval to sell the luxury hotel adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate after some investors said they’d rather have cash than suites and restaurants. But if you bought it you’d have to wait until 2032 to open your own hotel at the site — hotel chain Kempinski’s lease runs until then and they themselves may be interested in the property.
Air-conditioned trams
All BVG trams will be air conditioned by 2031 as aging trams without the convenience will be replaced by more modern, cooler models, according to T-Online. Only 113 of its 379 trains lack air conditioning though, if you’ve ridden in them on a hot day, you know it’s more a suggestion of air conditioning than actual air conditioning.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
🤖 Explosive Russian drone in Leipzig?
🌀 RWE caves to Trump on windmills
Factoid
Berliners affected by January’s blackout have been reimbursed a total of €900,000 for hotel costs, according to RBB24. 3,100 people applied for reimbursement and so far 2,900 applications have been reviewed with stays costing an average of between €52 to €55 per person per night. 129 applications were rejected and 54 were voluntarily rescinded. An estimated 100,000 people in 45,000 households were without power from Jan. 3 to 7 following an as-yet unsolved attack on power cables in southwestern Berlin.
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🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify
A cool thing about Volt is that find out what works in other European cities and incorporate it into their platform.