When, in 2013, we decided to move to Berlin, our number one
priority was finding a place to live. In
the months leading up to the move we scoured property rental websites and enquired
about flats all over the city (although ‘our’ neighbourhood was Prenzlauer Berg,
we were prepared to live just about anywhere).
Almost every evening though we would arrive home to e-mails informing us that
the latest property we’d expressed an interest in had been let. In the end just
one remained available, a one-bedroomed flat in a renovated Altbau opposite
Prenzlauer Allee S-Bahn station. It suited us, being in the part of the city
that we had become emotionally attached to. It was a quirky little place; I
loved the fact that it was front facing and spent hours on the balcony
observing the street life ‘Isherwood’ style.
The road is wide here and with four lanes of traffic, two
tram lines and – of course – the station, it’s constantly busy. Between the station and the junction with
Kanzowstrasse there are a Spar, a florist, a bakery and a 24-hour kebab shop,
plus a recently-opened ice-cream parlour.
Just around the corner in Kanzowstrasse, the display of fruit and veg outside
the Mizgin späti is another round-the-clock feature. In the morning, busy, breakfast-deprived
travellers call in at the bakery or the Spar for takeaway coffee and pastries
while the neighbourhood’s hardcore drinkers gather at the outdoor tables of the
kebab shop to smoke and philosophise over the first beers of the day. This is
the less genteel end of Prenzlauer Berg; although a mere stone’s throw from its
charming café-lined squares and shops full of expensive knick-knacks, it could
be a world away. The denizens of this little enclave move in a
different orbit to that of the bourgeois-bohemian parents of nearby Helmholtzplatz. Non-locals are usually only passing through on journeys to other parts of the city or beyond; the station has a direct line to Schönefeld. This little building is the hub, the area’s beating heart. To me it’s like
a beehive – a honey-coloured box buzzing throughout the day. At the entrance
there is often a ‘Strassenfeger’ seller quietly hoping to collect at least a
few coins from the migrating hordes. At other times the site is appropriated by
those spreading the word of God, advocating veganism, promoting a new gym or
even selling T-shirts. Just inside the station, the colourful and fragrant wares
of the Vietnamese flower seller are spread along the concourse. There is a newspaper seller too, occasional
buskers, and a poor homeless guy who huddles at the top of the steps, watched
over (if he’s sleeping) by his faithful dog. The only other human fixture is
the drug dealer who stands for hours each day alongside the bikes that occupy a
wide swathe of the pavement and festoon the railings of the footbridge that
spans the tracks. Most will be freed from their chains when their owners return
at the end of the day but some bear signs of having been long forsaken with
their rusting frames and bent or missing wheels. Last year there was a fatality
here and for a while the bikes shared railing space with floral tributes.
The view from the footbridge
Just across the bridge, a sleek, modern, and somewhat incongruous
building houses a Bio Company which lures conscientious Prenzlauer Berg parents.
Outside, for those less concerned with nutritional worthiness, there is a Quarkkeulchen
vendor whose cholesterol-laden specialities perfume the air and who does a
particularly brisk trade during the colder months (in the summer an Erdbeer
Hutte stands here).
As stations go, Prenzlauer Allee is hardly Grand Central, in
fact it’s more of a stop than a station, albeit a quaint one. Its alignment
with the tracks means that it sits at a slightly peculiar angle to the street
but this only adds to its eccentric appeal.
Dating from 1892, the building sustained damage during World War II but
was later restored. It has a steep
pitched roof and a yellow-brick exterior with a square clock. There are two entrance arches giving onto a compact
marble-floored concourse and a wide staircase which leads down to the platforms
(there is also a lift). The brickwork is
decorative, being from an era when a functional municipal structure could also
be a thing of beauty. There is a
shuttered hatch which might have been a ticket or refreshments booth at some
point. Now, drinks, croissants and
baguettes can be bought from a small Le Crobag kiosk on the platform and
tickets are obtained from what are probably the most unreliable machines in the
city. The station is also staffed by (arguably) the BVG’s most unhelpful
employees.
An all-too-common sight!
The other less than helpful aspect of the station is its
name. Like its sister stations, Schönhauser Allee and Greifswalder Strasse, the
station bears the name of a street that is about three kilometres long. On more
than one occasion I’ve encountered a bewildered traveller seeking a Prenzlauer
Allee address and wondering why it is nowhere near the station. As it’s directly across the road from the
Planetarium, maybe naming the station after that landmark would provide a more
accurate clue to its location, but I’m not going to be the one to suggest it.
We lived in our little flat opposite the station for six
months; the owner wanted to return the following April, so in the spring we had
the unenviable task of looking for somewhere else to live. Miraculously, given the size of the city, the
place we found was just three hundred metres away on the corner of
Kanzowstrasse and Dunckerstrasse and actually even closer to the station than
the Prenzlauer Allee flat. It was on the
ground floor of a three-sided building – the blank side overlooking the railway
tracks. Although I can no longer see the
station entrance from my window, I only have to step out through the front door
and onto the bridge for a back view. The
tracks are visible from the hof which is only a few feet away from the pointed
end of the platform. The trains trundle past along the gorge formed by the tall
tenement houses of Kanzowstrasse and Ahlbecker Strasse and the sloping banks of
trees which provide a seasonally changing spectacle. When
the windows are open, I can hear the station announcer and the trisyllabic
signal that’s sounded when the train doors are about to close. Living in such proximity to the train tracks is not everyone's cup of tea but I spent my childhood in a house by a railway line so it's something I've almost always been used to.
From Dunckerstrasse
It was only recently, as I was sorting through the hundreds
of photos I’ve taken since I moved here, that I realised how many shots of the
station I have. I’ve photographed it in the rain, in the snow, in dazzling winter
sunshine and in the blue of the twilight hour.
I’ve snapped its deserted platforms during train drivers’ strikes and on
the evening of the World Cup Final when Germany’s involvement rendered the
entire city eerily silent. I’ve even taken pictures from down on the platform
of the graffiti-covered buildings that loom above the tracks. I’ve lived within yards of the station for
almost two years now. I travel from it two or three times a week and walk past
it daily. It’s become one of my anchors
– once I reach it I know I’m home. Sadly I have to face the fact that one day
my tenure in this little corner of the world will come to an end and it will be with a very heavy heart that I make my way to the platform to board the S9 to Schönefeld for the last time.
