Radio Free Mike

a berlin blog

Monday, January 10, 2005

Mittendrin

The building here is a stony former Communist housing triangle on a corner of what used to be (seriously) a chic part of East Berlin. A concrete courtyard has magpies, sparse patches of grass, and a macadam ping-pong table. The indoor light-switches make a loud buzz in the fusebox when you turn anything off or on. The taps gurgle with a sound like Donald Duck. "Das war vorher luxus," says the friendly doctor I rent from: "This used to be considered luxury." Well, that's not my fault. But you walk outside, especially after dark, and the narrow Sophienstrasse offers (on close inspection) a billiard room, a whiskey-and-cigar store, a woodwind shop, a puppet stage, a green-glowing nightclub, a church that rings on Sundays, and brick factory courtyards converted to loft apartments and theaters. These courtyards date from the industrial Kaiser days. They used to be tenement slums where workers ran sewing machines or drill-presses and raised gangs of noisy kids. Now they're gentrification showpieces, and if your neighborhood has them it may mean your neighborhood is hip. A man who interviewed me today for teaching work called Sophienstrasse "the best street in Berlin." Could that be true? It's only a few blocks long. And I think the neighborhood as a whole is too potato-colored for superlatives.

But just as I was writing this, a parade of protesters marched past my window. They were performing a "Montags-Demo" or weekly demonstration against Hartz IV, a plan to roll back German welfare. Unemployment is up to around 10 percent in Berlin and other eastern parts, so people are pissed. The protest was short, loud, peaceful, to the point; and it made my dowdy neighborhood feel like part of a real city.