voteBerlin

Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg were separate boroughs until unified in the administrative reform of 2001. Before the Berlin Wall fell, the boroughs belonged to two different cities: Friedrichshain was in East, Kreuzberg in West Berlin. In Friedrichshain, the “workers’ borough”, during the GDR’s final years a niche for youth-based counterculture emerged....

Berlin’s endless guessing game goes something like this: “Which is going to be the capital city’s next hip borough?” Prenzlauer Berg is, like, so yesterday, and Wedding has been said to be “up and coming” for years, and there are those who suggest that Lichtenberg is it. Clubs are opening on Rummelsburg...

With 40 embassies, the Federal Parliament, Federal Council, Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall) among others, you could almost believe that Mitte – Berlin’s second smallest borough – is home to more governmental buildings than flats. Mitte also happens to be the site of Berlin’s second largest park area at 210...

As recently as ten years ago, many saw Neukölln as the capital’s most dangerous social powder keg. It would be interesting to find out how many of those who saw Neukölln this way,  have moved there in the meantime. Today, the north side is seen as the borough’s “in” district,...

“Jottwede”, or: „Janz weit draußen“ … Genuine Berlinerisch expression (meaning “miles away”) that could be used to describe Reinickendorf. And yet you’ll hardly find another borough with as varied a landscape. The northern parts of Reinickendorf are barely distinguishable from Wedding, while time appears to have stood still in the...

If you ask a Spandauer where they come from you’ll hear: “Spandau.” There is a distinct small-town feel to this western borough that sits where the rivers Spree and Havel meet. The Spandau settlement is mentioned in medieval texts that date back to 1197, 40 years before Berlin, which was...

In no other borough are the Berlins of yesteryear and of today so well combined as in Tempelhof-Schöneberg. In the Berlin of the golden 1920s, life was a cabaret – and the cabarets were in Schöneberg. Even back then, homosexuals were warmly welcomed in the clubs. Many artists and authors...

From the industrial Schöneweide out to the recreation area in Friedrichshagen, Treptow-Köpenick is a working and day-trip borough. On both sides of the Görlitzer Railway – the Berlin-Görlitz stretch that goes through the once single borough of Treptow – industrial areas were being developed a long time ago. At 3.7%,...