EXBERLINER Issue 153, October 2016

More documents

Recommendations

Info

AMERICAN BERLIN THE FRENCH SECTOR THE BRITISH SECTOR R E I N I C K E N D O R F PA N KOW The United States’ influence is all over Berlin, if you know where to look. Here are 14 spots where the Amis have left their mark. S PA N DA U WEDDING M O A B I T B R A N D E N B U R G E R T O R P R E N Z L A U E R B E R G By Kaya Payseno and Kate Richards Z O O L O G I S C H E R G A R T E N F R I E D R I C H S - H A I N NYU BERLIN Inside Prenzlauer Berg’s Kulturbrauerei, New York University’s Berlin campus (one of 14 satellites around the world) takes in about 120 NYU students each semester to study everything from psychology to German cinema to music tech start-ups – plus mandatory German for everyone. Perfect for kids who want to expand their horizons (and, you know, party) while still enjoying a not-too-exotic, dorms-and-all college experience. G R U N E WA L D C H A R L O T T E N B U R G – W I L M E R S D O R F S T E G L I T Z – Z E H L E N D O R F T E M P E L H O F – S C H Ö N E B E R G K R E U Z B E R G T E M P E L H O F E R F E L D NEUKÖLLN HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT In 1956, mostly to thumb their noses at the Soviets, the Americans constructed a massive, oddly shaped conference centre and concert hall then known as the Kongresshalle, just metres away from the border with East Berlin, five years before the Wall divided the city. The money for this symbol of Western power was finagled by American stateswoman Eleanor Dulles who, through hard bargaining and downright tomfoolery, raised a total of $1 billion for reconstruction and employment projects in Berlin. Now serving as a multimedia art forum focussed on global issues, HKW is currently closed for repairs till January 2017, when the “Pregnant Oyster” can get back to indoctrinating the public with an American agenda – just kidding, they’re funded by the German government now! AMERIKA HAUS Built as an innocuous American reading room and cultural centre in the 1950s, the building on Hardenbergstraße found itself a target of anti- US sentiment around the time of the Vietnam War, when German students pelted it with eggs WA N N S E E and, later, incendiary devices. It was given over to the German government in 2006 and reopened two years ago as the new home for C/O (see page 36) after the prominent photo gallery was gentrified out of Mitte. It only took 7947 litres of paint, 27,568 screws, and 241,000 invitations to make it happen. US EMBASSY THE AMERICAN SECTOR As if it weren’t enough that the German government had to divert Ebertstraße to pacify America’s rigorous security demands when their embassy was moved to Pariser Platz back in 2008, Ed Snowden revealed to us in 2013 that the NSA had been using special rooftop panels on this beige Brillo pad of a building to listen in on Angela Merkel’s phone calls at the Reichstag some 600 metres away. AMERICAN ACADEMY Today, on the west bank of Wannsee, Rebecca Boehling from University of Maryland is investigating the Allies’ approach to de-Nazification, Tom Franklin from the University of Mississippi is writing a novel about rural Alabama, and Ioana Uricaru is making a film about America’s recruitment of German academics after WWII – just to name a few. Since 1994, 24 American fellows have been coming to 14 EXBERLINER 153
AMERICAN BERLIN LICHTENBERG BERLIN WALL SOVIET EAST BERLIN M A R Z A H N - H E L L E R S D O R F T R E P T OW Illustration by Josh Young the American Academy each year to conduct research projects and learn from each other (and the Germans). For one semester, these lucky scholars enjoy a room in the upstairs of the lakeside villa and a €5000/month stipend mostly funded by the building’s original owners, the Arnolds, a prominent Jewish banking family who had to flee during World War II. CHECKPOINT CHARLIE Here’s the only place in town where you can still have your photo taken with a GI... or an actor dressed as one, anyway. It’s all so touristy you forget this was the site of a 16-hour standoff between US and Soviet tanks in 1961. Nowadays, the recreated American Sector sign by the onetime border crossing (the original is at the Allied Museum, see #13) is more an indicator that you are entering a busy US-style business district, with buildings designed by renowned American architects including postmodernist star Philip Johnson. AMERIKA- GEDENKBIBLIOTHEK Opened in 1954 with the help of a $5 million donation from the US, the boxy building by Hallesches Tor was the first public library in Europe where bookworms could freely wander the stacks without having to order books over the counter from a librarian. It’s all about “unlimited freedom of the human mind”, according to the Thomas Jefferson quote over the entrance. The sign normally just reads “Gedenkbibliothek”, but though October 13, you can finally see “Amerika” atop the building courtesy of an artist initiative co-funded by the US Embassy. Sadly for American visitors, only a few shelves’ worth of its 900,000 books are in English. BARCOMI’S Ami cuisine is all over Berlin today (see page 52), but even before White Trash, there was Cynthia Barcomi’s Kreuzberg café. The New York pioneer started selling her cheesecake and bagels in Kreuzberg in 1994; a second location, the more spacious Barcomi’s Deli in Mitte, followed soon after in 1997. It’s still one of the only places in town where the bagels are made by hand. FREE UNIVERSITY A mini-city of 28,000 in the middle of placid Dahlem, the Freie Universität was founded in 1948 under orders from US military commander Lucius D. Clay, to provide Berlin students with a place where they could study “free” from Soviet influence. These days lots of expat students, including some 550 from the US, come to FU for the nearlyfree tuition (€304 per semester, but that includes a BVG pass) and the freedom to not learn German – 25 masters programmes are taught in English. You can even get a bachelor’s degree in North American Studies at the university’s JFK Institute, established in 1963. Germans, for their part, can take advantage of FU’s longstanding exchange programme with Stanford and study in California for nearly nothing. Pro tip: FU’s library is home to over 1.75 million-plus English-language books, and you don’t have to be a student there to check them out. SILVERWINGS CLUB Before Tempelhof was a park and refugee shelter, it was a US military complex. The only reminder of that time is the 1952-built Silverwings, now a somewhat cheesy German nightclub that hosts private parties, then a place where NCOs went to play pool, eat a cheeseburger and watch artists like Johnny Cash. If you had a local sweetheart, you could bring her by on weekend “German-American nights”. She’d have to exchange her deutschmarks for US dollars at the door, but as a military man you could pick up the tab with “Tempelhof Tokens”, currency distributed to soldiers to encourage them to stay on base. Times may have changed, but the décor hasn’t – you can still see the gold lacquered mosaic from the 1950s, and even the beat-up white trash can from the 1980s. ALLIED MUSEUM/ OUTPOST CINEMA If you want a more legit version of Checkpoint Charlie, head to this museum in Dahlem, where you’ll find the original guardhouse building outdoors alongside the famous “You are leaving the American sector” sign and a Hastings TG 503 plane (which transported coal during the Berlin Airlift). Go inside the former Nicholson Memorial garrison library and Outpost armed forces cinema for exhibitions on the history of Berlin’s Western occupation, as well as the sign that used to flash before every Outpost screening: “National Anthem is playing now. Please wait.” TEUFELSBERG Thank the NSA for the giant, dilapidated domes protruding above the Berlin skyline in the west. Built atop a dumping zone for tens of millions of cubic metres of World War II rubble, the Teufelsberg spy station was used by American intelligence to tap into Soviet, East German, and Warsaw Pact nations’ military communications from 1961 till the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It’s now in the hands of investor Marvin Schütte, who magnanimously lets you check out the domes’ still-impressive acoustics on daily guided tours (€7). COLUMBIA THEATER Part of a recreation centre for US troops, the cinema near Tempelhof opened on October 13, 1951 with a screening of Captain Horatio Hornblower starring Gregory Peck. It closed soon after reunification but found new life in 1998 as a concert hall and event space; last year it was taken over by a quartet of Berlin bookers and promoters who restored its 1950s vibe and classed up the programme (American indie singer Angel Olsen hits it this month). n OCTOBER 2016 15
Page 1 and 2: Berlin in English since 2002 153
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS Exberliner 153 - October 2
Page 5 and 6: Berlin in English since 2002 TRUMP
Page 7 and 8: BEST OF BERLIN — October 2016 Tee
Page 9 and 10: AMERICAN BERLIN we recruit and enab
Page 11 and 12: AMERICAN BERLIN “I’M NOT DOING
Page 13 and 14: AMERICAN BERLIN Above: Ellen and Ri
Page 15: AMERICAN BERLIN Anna Winger is curr
Page 19 and 20: AMERICAN BERLIN Right: American Ber
Page 21 and 22: AMERICAN BERLIN Boogie”: three st
Page 23 and 24: AMERICAN BERLIN I remember him sitt
Page 25 and 26: REGULARS PAGE 23 GIRL Blue skies, b
Page 27 and 28: ADVERTORIAL — Shopping in Berlin
Page 29 and 30: WHAT’S ON — How Berlin Got The
Page 31 and 32: WHAT’S ON — Film Review Notes O
Page 33 and 34: WHAT’S ON — Film Reviews his mo
Page 35 and 36: WHAT’S ON — Music Preview Bring
Page 37 and 38: WHAT’S ON — Music terrible way
Page 39 and 40: WHAT’S ON — Art haus, will open
Page 41 and 42: WHAT’S ON — Art Through Oct 22
Page 43 and 44: WHAT’S ON — Stage Preview AT MA
Page 45 and 46: ADVERTISING — The Language School
Page 47 and 48: WHAT’S ON Human Rights Watch (see
Page 49 and 50: ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide NO
Page 51 and 52: ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide fa
Page 53 and 54: REGULARS On the other hand, the int
Page 55 and 56: COLUMN— The Gay Berliner Letter t
Page 57 and 58: REGULARS Review Dandy Diner: Fast v
Page 59 and 60: NOW IN BERLIN COLUMN — Ask Hans-T
Page 61 and 62: REGULARS High art for the little pe
Page 63 and 64: 14|10 A Night for LILI BOULANGER LI

EXBERLINER Issue 153, October 2016

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?