Rhea Boyden on one of Prenzlauer Berg’s most atmospheric and storied streets…
An acquaintance who lives in Mitte, a few meters from an underground station, thought I was crazy to live on Kopenhagener Straße in Prenzlauer Berg because it’s so disconnected from public transportation. He did have a point. The street is 800 metres long; Schönhauser Allee is the closest station to my apartment and it is 700 meters away—but it is a fantastic street with a fascinating history.
Kopenhagener Straße runs parallel to the Ringbahn from Schönhauser Allee to Schwedter Straße, where the Wall used to divide the French sector of Wedding from the Soviet sector of Prenzlauer Berg. These days the Wall is long gone and you can find the excellent Moritzhof Children’s Farm instead, from where I sometimes used to hear the distant bleat of a sheep or crow of a cockerel and completely forget I was in the middle of a city.
The farm was created, after much negotiating with politicians and the Berlin senate, in 1998. By April 2000, the animals had moved in: the same mix of sheep, goats, chickens, geese, ponies, rabbits and guinea pigs that families can find there today (alongside pottery and basket making classes). There is also now a climbing tower for people of all ages to use and the road leads down to wonderful Mauerpark.
Heading east towards Schönhauser Allee, you’ll notice that most of the street is comprised of typical turn-of-the-century Mietskaserne housing, several of the buildings were built in Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) style between 1900 and 1910. But perhaps the most prominent and impressive building is the red-brick Humboldt transformer station co-designed by industrial architect Hans-Heinrich Müller.
Built between 1924 and 1926, the vast factory provided Prenzlauer Berg with electricity right up until June 1993. In 2000, the transformer station became the home of Vitra Design Museum, which moved out after a few months. Various events have been hosted there since, including a Kunstsalon in November 2008, though today it hosts the offices of a tourism company. Though the interior is inaccessible to the public, you can see some great photos here.
Right across the street is by far the most popular cafe and bar in the area, Kohlenquelle, a former coal storage building. Kohlenquelle serves reasonably-priced lunches with daily specials that includes their well-established Käsespätzle (Swabian noodles) plus goulash, salads and soups. If you don’t mind the famously “laid back” service, it’s a great spot to enjoy a leisurely meal; and if you’re a history fan, you should check out Juhani Seppovaara’s short documentary all about the building and its fascinating past.
Back in the not-so-recent past, Kohlenquelle also hosted the popular Mittwochsclub in the cellar, a fairly riotous Wednesday night throwdown with an emphasis on electro, disco and global beats. Punters needed a password and the bouncer’s main job was to keep everyone quiet as they came back out, so as not to disturb the neighbours.
Kopenhagener Straße is punctuated with regular playgrounds, partly a product of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. There’s a ‘jungle playground’ where Kopenhagenerstrasse intersects Rhinowerstrasse, along which you can find the excellent Rhinoceros Bar, a top spot for fans of contemporary jazz (the sound system is amazing) as well as French wines and Japanese whiskies.
Sweet-toothed strollers used to be able to visit the fabulous Sugafari at #69. Its owner, Alexis, a cheerful and sociable man with a full head of blond curls, once told me that his goal was to obtain one sweet from every country in the world. Sadly, his shop closed down sometime after the pandemic but now houses the hair salon Herr Hasel, which used to be across the street. It’s now quite a trendy friseur but in its former days there was a piano in the salon and frequent solo performances by local musicians.
Meanwghile at #14 you can find Wolfgang Gross’s black and white photography studio, previously called Lichtmal. Gross was born in Mitte in 1956 and grew up in Prenzlauer Berg. He has embraced the changes that have taken place in the neighbourhood and does not seem too upset by gentrification. He has been teaching black and white photography in his studio since 2002 and business is still good. In the past many of his customers were younger students, he says, but these days he caters to an older crowd.
Gross is just one of the many creative people who used to live on Kopenhagener Strasse. A 2008 study by the geography department of Berlin’s Humboldt University counted 45 actors, authors and painters living here. The study identified a major protagonist in the street’s creative cluster: Steven Otto, a Canadian investor, who bought three buildings in 2000 and rented the apartments mainly to artists who did not have a steady income. Although those days seem largely gone—along with the bookshop that used to be here—you can still stumble across the occasional gallery or architectural studio amidst the yoga spots and casual bars.
By now there are definitely some fancier places these days, such as a new Georgian restaurant (Daia), the more established neighbourhood sharing-plate sensation Estelle, and a slew of contemporary glass-fronted coffee shops and wine bars such as K.eins, which has some good pavement seating. For something more established and charming though, try the family-run Italian spot Bar Salumeria Sigismondo at #6 for espresso and lunches, and the Kopenhagener Weinhandlung on the other side of the street at #72. Locals might remember it as Nix Wie Wein (originally opened in 1997) whose tradition it continues and updates with a great mix of traditional and natural wines.
The laid-back atmosphere of the street still makes it fairly easy to come into contact with the locals. Many of the mothers continue to organise informal flea markets and clothes exchanges right on the street in the summer. The local bike shop Wulf (#73) remains something of a meeting point, and there are still occasional street barbecues and parties where the neighbours come out and share food and drink. Some residents near the Ystader Strasse corner of Kopenhagener Strasse take full advantage of the wide footpaths to cultivate gardens in various vessels, including zucchini, corn, tomatoes, herbs, sunflowers and many other flowers.
Since the fall of the Wall, nearly every building on Kopenhagener Strasse has been renovated, but two elements of the street help retain a nostalgic aura: the shiny cobblestones and the fact it’s not a main thoroughfare. For this reason it has been a much-used set for several ‘Ostalgie’ films over the years; parts of ‘Sommer Vorm Balkon’, ‘Der Rote Kakadu, ‘Das Leben ist eine Baustelle’ and several others were filmed here. At #41 you can even find a rare Goldener Hausnummer—these were given out during the GDR era to apartment blocks that were particularly well looked after, as a way to incentivise self-reparations and general orderliness.
One time, I came home from work to discover that the Berlin Wall had actually been re-built on my street; I was only allowed past the ‘checkpoint’ after assuring the film crew that I lived there. It wasn’t the first time a film crew had overtaken my house before; though it has been since renovated, it was for most of the time still in its post-war/pre-wall state—i.e. run-down and riddled with bullet holes—and its hallway attracted curious passersby as well as the camera crews. In fact, if you pay attention and get lucky with an open door at the right time, you can also find some unrefurbished interiors today.
Finally, a small flurry of Asian spots can now be found close to the Schönhauser Allee end of the street—the Asia-Markt is a treasure trove of sauces, spices, noodles, sweets for anyone who enjoys cooking Asian food, and there’s also Bangkok Massage, an Asian-run shop that repairs and cleans clothes, and a large Hairs and Nails store. While it’s true that the street has changed in the years since I lived here, it remains as fascinating as anywhere else in Prenzlauer Berg for a leisurely stroll.