EXBERLINER Issue 148 April 2016

URBAN CHANGE
Prescription
for gentrification
Defeated by high rents and
low profits, Kotti’s historical
corner pharmacies are being
occupied by chic bars and
cafés. Cause to break out the
antidepressants? By Kevin Chow
When café and cocktail joint Ora
opened last year amid the boutiques,
bookstores and bars on
Kreuzberg’s Oranienstraße, it was
a near-instant blogosphere hit. But it’s not just
the homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon
buns that get the Instagram treatment from a
clientele of fashionable young internationals juggling
Voo Store bags. It’s also the magnificent location,
with stucco ceiling, stone floors and a rich
wooden counter backed by a wall of medicine
bottles and tiny shelves, all over 150 years old.
This was the Oranien-Apotheke, once known
as the “Purveyor of the Emperor and King of
Germany, its Colonies and Armies”. Founded
in 1860 by the pharmacist Rudolph Ernst Emil
Kade, it operated as a neighbourhood pharmacy
until its final owners the Dallmann family, unable
to find a successor, had to close it in 2013.
Now, it’s yet another Kotti business that caters
more to expats and tourists than to the neighbourhood's
longtime residents.
And it’s got company. Just around the corner
from Ora, on Mariannenplatz, is the site of
the former Mariannen-Apotheke, also founded
over a century ago. After closing in 2014, the
pharmacy has become the Apotheken Bar, a
high-end cocktail bar started by mixologist
Sinan Gültekin. With an impressive selection of
liquors – including homemade coriander-infused
gin, and orange and vanilla bitters – it’s become
an atmospheric place to relax amid rows of
amber antique pill bottles. Last but not least,
At a quick glance, it’s
difficult to distinguish
photographs taken of the
pharmacy in 1860 from
the Instagram snaps taken
by the café’s guests.
there’s the Apotheke am Kottbusser Tor, right
by the U-Bahn station, which shut down last
year to become a second location of burger joint
Burgermeister. Their largely English-speaking
client base of tourists wanting to see “gritty
Kreuzberg” hints at Kotti’s dramatic conversion
from a low-income neighbourhood to a hub of
hipster culture and sightseeing.
Nobody’s kept a better eye on this transformation
than the humble and earnest members
of the group Kotti & Co, based since 2012 out
of a wooden Gecekondu (“house built overnight”
in Turkish) off Admiralstraße. There,
people like Ahmet Tunter give a political voice
to the people being priced out of their own
neighbourhood. Tunter moved to Kreuzberg
in 1977, and remembers when rents in the area
were “between 50-200 deutschmarks (€25-
100) per month. Kreuzberg was the poorest
quarter in Berlin.” Now, according to the
latest Mietspiegel, rents for apartments around
Kotti average €9.80/sqm per month – up 5.3
percent in the past year alone. Commercial
space, meanwhile, goes for €30/sqm and up.
These increases are a particularly
bitter pill to swallow for
independently owned pharmacies,
which already must struggle
with high financial strain
due to rising drug prices, not to
mention stiff competition from
websites and big chains. Overall,
the number of independent
Apotheken in Berlin plummeted
from 761 in 2008 to 700 in 2014.
Those that have been able to
thrive are usually located in
upscale neighbourhoods, central
business districts or malls,
where clientele don’t mind paying
full price for medicine, or
else they profit from booming
sales in pricey cosmetics and
wellness products. Pharmacy
owners around Kottbusser Tor
have no such luxury.
But maybe the demise of the
mom 'n' pop corner pharmacy
isn't the worst form of gentrification
– especially when the new
owners are eager to pay homage
to their old tenants’ past. While
the physical pharmacy may no
longer be in their hands, the
pharmaceutical manufacturer Kade launched
in 1860 in Oranien-Apotheke is still in business
today, and spokesperson Sebastian Hamsch
reports that the company is enthusiastic about
the new café. “It really looks exactly like the
historical photographs of Oranien-Apotheke. So
much of the original furniture is still there.” At a
quick glance, it’s difficult to distinguish photographs
taken of the pharmacy in 1860 from the
Instagram photos taken by the café’s guests...
albeit with a few changes. The pharmacy counter
now glistens with sugary Zimtschnecken (cinnamon
rolls) instead of ampoules, and the former
backroom laboratory is now the kitchen.
As for the Apotheken Bar, it was opened
by a local who knew the original Mariannen-
Apotheke from his childhood and caters primarily
to locals in need of an after-work drink. Upon
taking over the location, Gültekin strove to
keep the history of the place alive, keeping the
old shelving and even the old sign – with a fake
stone crashing through it, a gimmick meant to
commemorate the destruction caused by May
Day riots some years ago.
By catering to a clientele willing to shell out
over €6 for a coffee and pastry, €10 for a cocktail
and €9 for a burger and fries, these places
might just be symptoms of our time – reflecting
the changing demographics in Kreuzberg.
Meanwhile, they've become neighbourhood
institutions in their own right. For Ora owner
Lukas Schmid, the café “isn’t just antique, but
has grown its charm from 1860 to today by
adding pieces and bits each decade. When we
entered it for the first time, it was this trip back
through the different eras of Berlin that took
our breath away.” Kotti’s present might hang in
uncertainty, but traces of its past are preserved
in these former pharmacies. n
The Oranien-Apotheke, then and now.
CHRISTOPH MAC
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