Dear Bloggers,
Hello again from a darkening Berlin (for all you readers beguiled by Berlin’s momentary trendiness, the city sits at 52 degrees 30 minutes North—that’s higher up than Quebec City!)
As the Winterzeit sets in and 2010 approaches, it’s a good time to reflect on the changes that have brought us to where we are now. Berlin, as many of you know, is a city in flux. Every day a new building pops up, a new restaurant opens and old rents rise. Berlin is still a comparatively inexpensive city to live in, but an aggressive wave of gentrification has ransacked this once Bohemian paradise.
As any moderately informed tourist can tell you, this started out in the former East neighborhood of Prenzlauerberg or “P’Berg” as the Amis (Americans) like to call it. This area has become a war zone for stroller-pushing mommies, organic-foodies and, inevitably, hipsters. Rents in this area have sky-rocketed to over €1,500 a month (you can still can a great, centrally located apartment in Berlin for €300/month).
But in reality, this all happened a long time ago (long being a relative term if you consider this Berlin’s inception as 1989 and not the 13th century). Since the take-over of Prenzlberg (the slightly more authentic abbreviation), the wave of up-and-comings has flooded Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and now, they’re standing at the breach of my neighborhood: Neukölln.
Neukölln has long been a bastion of immigrants – mainly of the Turkish variety – and feared by the common Berliner for its rancid Döner Kebabs and Persian-language signs. I’ve been hiding out in this multicultural enclave for almost 4 years now, living off of produce dripping with DDT and buying my bread from a bakery where Turkish is the official, and only, language.
Ben bir ekmek kutular miyim sen?
But things have changed. Drastically. Let me explain. A year and a half ago, I was renting an apartment on a quiet side-street called Weserstraße. At that time, there was one bakery/café around the corner and what’s known as an Alt-Herren-Kneipe (an “old-men-bar”). Fast-forward one year later; there are now over 20 galleries on Weserstraße.
Over the next few weeks, I would like to talk about some of these galleries and their effects on the surrounding community. Come watch the process of gentrification firsthand and learn a little about a neat city you might want to see before it turns into Brooklyn.
Thanks for reading,
Amy
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