Walk by the Water: Berlin: Spree 3

Old Herr Z. and the Fat Fish

Much of this stretch of the Spree is happy: not in the modern sense of subjective feeling, but in the classical sense that this is a successful human project, a piece of mixed good fortune and good endeavor. This is my home stretch, where I walk up and down on many afternoons, winter and summer alike--and am happy, in the modern sense of subjective feeling.

Archangel, who is wary of unpaved nature, looks at it dubiously.

There is mud here, he says.

True. We have had spring thundershowers, and the bicyclists weave from side to side along the river-path to keep out of the puddles.

From the U-Bahn stop, it is not far to the spot along the river where we left off last time. Just a few hundred meters down Wintersteinstrasse, with its mix of ugly flat-chested apartment houses and occasional soaring imaginations.

Phoenix: painting by Gert Neuhaus on the side of an
apartment house on Wintersteinstrasse, Charlottenburg.
Photo, Wiki Commons

We come to the water at a perfect place, a rose garden behind the Russian church (bright blue with little gold domes), across the river from my favorite power plant in all Berlin.

What a poetic power plant, what a romantic-English-landscape-painting sort of power plant! (Though the landscape painter would have managed to get it perfectly upright and not slightly tilted as in my photo).

Kraftwerk Charlottenburg, May 2014. My photo.

The part of the plant that appears above is the working part: three gas turbines that give us heat and power at peak times in the winter. (There is also a big block of pollution control equipment nearby that is one of the largest objects in the neighborhood.) Step a little further down the river and we come to an older part of the plant, a machine hall now vacant and in search of uses.

Kraftwerk Charlottenburg (old machine hall). Photo, ThoKay, Wiki Commons.

**
I believe that one of C.S. Lewis's books represents Hell as a place where people are constantly moving farther away from each other. Detroit has been like this (as other cities have been, to lesser degrees--and not just in the US). Trash a neighborhood (that is, fail to maintain the physical and social fabric of it), move away; trash the new neighborhood, move farther away--always new suburbs, farther and farther out. The infrastructure starts falling to pieces, so you move to another town, another part of the country, where things are newer. How long can you do this? Even in a big country, how long can you strew the place with your trash instead of learning to (as it were) clean your room and fix the plumbing when it needs fixing? So that people can live in the same place for centuries without living in their own filth.

Berlin has been in a clean-up-fix-up orgy for a couple of decades now, and even if some of the results have not been ideal, repurposing and rebuilding in place surely beats saying, "Oh, great, now that the Wall is down we can clear out of here and build new suburbs in Brandenburg!" There has been some building on the fringes of the city, but also much interior building and rebuilding and repurposing. We will see some examples as we go along the Spree through center city. And something interesting will be done with the power plant machine hall one of these days; it will just take time. Not to rush, with things that will matter to the neighborhood for the next hundred years.

**
A little further along, we come to a major intersection in the Spree-Oder Wasserstrasse, the "water street" that links the Spree (and so the Elbe and the North Sea, Amsterdam and London and the western world) to the Oder (and so Poland and the Baltic, and Finland and Russia). You can travel forever on the water from here: across the Baltic, along the Russian rivers into the interior, the way my father's family moved in the eighteenth century, from the hills outside Frankfurt to Saratov on the southern Volga. Complaining vigorously of dirt and lice the whole way.

Water-street intersection: Spree, Landwehrkanal, Charlottenburger Verbindungskanal.
May 2014, my photo.

Here the Spree makes another 90-degree turn and starts to loop wildly, inscribing sine waves along the edge of the Technical University. Continuing on the footpath would take me along the Landwehrkanal (see February posts), and getting back along the Spree takes a little bit of roundabouting. Over the Dove Bridge--named for the scientist Heinrich Dove (who also has a crater on the moon named after him)--and then we scramble back the way we came, and then ... ah yes, we are about to meet the Spree again.

Dovebrücke, May 2014. My photo.

Here we know we're near the Technical U because the streets are all named for scientists: Dove, Einstein, Helmholtz, Darwin, Galvani. If the street names were Protestant theologians' names (Calvin, Melanchthon, Spener, Thomasius), we would be a little further west. If they were classical-German-culture names (Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Weimar, Leibniz), we would be a little further south.

How achievements litter the city streets here, like autumn leaves. You can't walk around the block without being reminded of poets and philosophers and scientists and social reformers. What are the most common street names in Germany--Goethe and Schiller? (Street names are often duplicated in Berlin because Berlin is made up of many separate cities: in the automobile club atlas of Berlin I count eight Goethe Streets and a Goethe Way, as well as seven Schiller Streets, three Schiller Ways, two Schiller Promenades, and a Schiller Ring.)

In the US I believe the most common street names are Main and Elm. (To be fair, Washington and Lincoln get in there a lot too. But poets and scientists? Nah, not so much.)

The sky is thickening up, getting ready for rain, here where someone has been torturing trees in the French fashion to make a geometrically orderly little grove by the water. Can I make it home before the showers come? It's not so far, but the sky is starting to look serious.

Along the Spree in Charlottenburg, May 2014. My photo.

This is an interesting stretch. There are old industrial buildings along here, often repurposed, sometimes not. (Siemens still makes big turbines north of the river, a bit further along, where they made big turbines in the nineteenth century.)

Along the Spree in Charlottenburg, May 2014. My photo.

There is also a little financial district here, mostly European insurance companies. Axa is on the Landwehrkanal right by the Dovebrücke. Skandia is next-door to the building below, where the walls reflect the dithering sky. (Rain? Sun? Rain?) Pricewaterhouse Coopers (auditor of financial firms) is nearby, on the other side of the big water intersection, on a scientist-street (Lise Meitner, the nuclear physicist).

Along the Spree in Charlottenburg, May 2014. My photo.

**
The orderly small homeless encampments under the bridges along this stretch of the river have migrated to the parks for the summer. In winter, under each bridge, there are two or three standard-charity-issue foam mattresses and sleeping bags, along with a few personal possessions. A bucket and janitor's broom to keep the under-bridge space tidy. An improvised night-stand piled with old hardcover books.

The occupants are often out foraging during the day; no one disturbs the bedrolls and possessions. On sharp winter nights, volunteers come by on the "cold bus" to ask, "Do you want to go to a shelter tonight?" Some people say yes and and get in the bus, some people say no. ("In the shelter you get lice," one man grumbles.) The neighborhood newspaper says, "In the cold weather, be sure to speak to your local homeless, make sure they're all right." People do. (These are not families living under the bridges, as it might be in the US; these are men of a certain age with certain problems in life.)

Neighborhood scenes on the S-Bahn.

Sleek professional man, early middle age, very good suit, very good briefcase, absorbed in the newspaper, has beside him the only vacant seat in the car. Homeless man, distinctly smelly, says, "May I sit here?" "Of course," says Mr. Goodsuit, re-folding his newspaper to make more room. "It's not of course," says the other. "But thanks."
A trendy young couple have just got on the train carrying some takeout--not the standard train-station sandwiches or noodle-boxes, but something special in designer-looking cartons. A glazed, shambling beggar starts to work the car, asking for small change for food and not having much luck. The young couple split their designer takeout with him, half and half.

I cross the river at the Gotzkowsky bridge, where the Erlöserkirche (the Church of the Redeemer) stands up in a mighty-fortress kind of way, facing down the bleak hotel across the street.

Gotzkowskybrücke and Erlöserkirche, May 2014. My photo.

.... Ah, Gotzkowsky, the financial whiz of eighteenth-century Prussia--who, when the Russians besieged and finally occupied Berlin in 1760 and tried to extort four million thaler from the city, bargained them down to a million and a half, and dragged out the payments so that only half a million actually ever went to the Russians. He paid a tenth of the sum for the city from his personal funds. A semi-responsible financial whiz is not so bad to have around ...

Though the Russians got their own back. He was also speculating in Russian grain, expecting prices to go sky-high because of the war. But the price rise didn't happen, the grain was bad, and his partners slithered out or went bankrupt before he did. He ended up holding the bag for an enormous amount of money and had to sell much of his art collection to Russia to cover it. (This is where the Hermitage got eleven Rembrandts, two Raphaels, etc., etc. Gotzkowsky bought well.)

And oh dear, the river's edge here beyond the church, on the Wikingerufer (the Viking Bank) is still fenced off for some kind of work that does not seem to be progressing. (This has been going on for a long time.) Finally the fencing stops, and I can get down to the water .... Good thing, too, because here comes the rain.

Down to the Spree, between Wikingerufer and Hansa-Ufer, May 2014 My photo.

It's not much of a rain, it patters gently on the leaves overhead. The trees are so thick here, the rain hardly comes through, and you can hardly see across the water. The bright-orange expanse of the Technical U's Materials Science building is half lost behind the leaves.

Along the Spree near the TU, May 2014. My photo.

Materials Science is orange, the footbridge at the next bend in the river is orange ... A heron stands on one of the yellow markers in the river by the footbridge, mostly busy scratching under its wings for lice, but also willing to adopt a more dignified pose on request.

Gray Heron, Wullenwebersteg, May 2014. My photo.

Under the footbridge, around the corner--the Spree is looping giddily again here. And happily the rain has stopped and is moving off to the east, behind the Bolleblock.

Lessingbrücke and Bolleblock, May 2014. My photo.

We're back in Moabit again (south edge this time: see March post, Berlin-Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal 2, for the north edge). The Bolleblock is an ingenious piece of early-90s repurposing: credit to architects Kühn Bergander Bley, of Berlin. And oh, you can argue about it, as we should aways argue about buildings, because buildings matter. It isn't perfect, there isn't enough low-income housing, it turns its back on the scruffy street that borders it on the north. But it is the big object in the view from my study window, and how much pleasure it gives, every day, in every weather. (Bless you, Kühn Bergander Bley!) It didn't privatize the riverfront, it left the space free for bicyclists and walkers, it provided spaces for some diversity of jobs, it included a playground, it includes basic amenities like a grocery.

**

Moabit was still fairly agricultural in the nineteenth century. Further out there were orchards and fields and pastures; here by the river, where it was convenient to transport, were a quasi-industrial dairy (owned by the Bolle family, hence the name), a granary, and a not-so-agricultural steam laundry.

The old buildings have been worked into a fairly pleasant postmodern cityscape. There is a species of technology park here, an upscale hotel, expensive apartments, and a big office building currently occupied by the Interior Ministry.

Interior Ministry and apartments reflected in hotel wall; rhododendrons. May 2014. My photo.

The old dairy buildings have become part of the hotel, as well as housing restaurants and a grocery; the old steam laundry is offices, the old grain-unloading tower still stands by the water, and the bicycle path threads through the space where the grain elevator would have gone up and down from the barges.

Grain unloading tower, Bolleblock, May 2014. My photo,

My pals and I used to go fishing there, says my aged neighbor nostalgically. Herr Z. is a Polish immigrant, a retired janitor, suddenly gone frail and empty since his wife died, as though the stuffing had been pulled out of him. It was thick with fish, that stretch of the Spree. So much grain got spilled in the river right there, it brought the fish. Those were the fattest fish in Berlin.

It's not really a place for old Poles to go fishing any more, by the upscale restaurants on the water's edge. (This is one of the not-good things about the design here.) And of course the grain doesn't spill any more, so the fish are not the same--though perhaps the restaurant patrons toss crumbs.

Herr Z. likes to use me for a straight man when he is in a good mood and not in a fury with some other unfortunate neighbor. One fine spring afternoon when I came out the front door he was lying in wait and told me he had found a treasure.

Treasure? What kind?

You have to help me. He counts off seven of the little paving-blocks with his stick and points. There, in a crack between the blocks, something is sparkling. Can you pick it up? With my old bones, I can't get down there.

My bones have seen better days, as a matter of fact, but I can still get down on the ground and up again. The sparkler is a rhinestone, fallen off someone's costume jewelry. I give it to Herr Z.

It's a diamond, he says. I'm going to take it to the jeweler and have it appraised. In my role as straight man, I look amazed. He does not quite wink. I'll split the million euros with you when I get it, he says, and we shake hands on the deal.

**
Past the hotel, across the walk from the Interior Ministry, there is a fine playground:

Playground by Innenministerium, May 2014. My photo.

And then we are back to the street, to the Moabit Bridge, with bears guarding each end of it. I remember the bears from the first time we came to the neighborhood, almost fifteen years ago now--just wandering around and fantasizing about living here, not supposing it would work out.

When you walk onto the bridge, you face an inquiring bear (sculpture by Gunter Anlauf):