Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Now that I have a flickr account, I will be adding more photos from my Berlin trip from way back when.
Another side trip I made was to walk the length of Karl Marx Allee (nee: Stalinallee). This was East Germany's showcase social realsim boulevard right after the war. Parts of it are looking a little haggard, but the commies intended for the stuff to last.
While architecturally noteworthy, it's not exactly an urbanist's dream. The sheer width and highway nature of the boulevard kind of made it a drag to walk down. The only food I found along the way was a German fast food restaurant serving "Currywurst". The Karl Marx bookstore does make an appearance in "The Lives of Others", but it's one of the few notable shops along the length of the boulevard. It reminds me of a walk down the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, if any of you have ever had that experience.
Anyway, we start off at Alexanderplatz, the former centre of East Berlin.
although well patronized, the sterility of this square is hard to match
at the eastern end of the square it's hard to believe that this is in Germany.
There is a labyrinthian underground pedestrian concourse that is hardly used and badly neglected leading from Alexanderplatz to the Karl Marx Allee
I emerged to be confronted by this Nicolae Caucescu landscape
I really liked this one. It reminds me of that school in NYCC up on Spring Garden road.
A lot of the light posts have been hacked off and replaced with cheap, off-the-shelf models
I'll leave you off at the twin 'gatetowers' at Frankfurter Tor.
Another side trip I made was to walk the length of Karl Marx Allee (nee: Stalinallee). This was East Germany's showcase social realsim boulevard right after the war. Parts of it are looking a little haggard, but the commies intended for the stuff to last.
While architecturally noteworthy, it's not exactly an urbanist's dream. The sheer width and highway nature of the boulevard kind of made it a drag to walk down. The only food I found along the way was a German fast food restaurant serving "Currywurst". The Karl Marx bookstore does make an appearance in "The Lives of Others", but it's one of the few notable shops along the length of the boulevard. It reminds me of a walk down the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, if any of you have ever had that experience.
Anyway, we start off at Alexanderplatz, the former centre of East Berlin.
although well patronized, the sterility of this square is hard to match
at the eastern end of the square it's hard to believe that this is in Germany.
There is a labyrinthian underground pedestrian concourse that is hardly used and badly neglected leading from Alexanderplatz to the Karl Marx Allee
I emerged to be confronted by this Nicolae Caucescu landscape
I really liked this one. It reminds me of that school in NYCC up on Spring Garden road.
A lot of the light posts have been hacked off and replaced with cheap, off-the-shelf models
I'll leave you off at the twin 'gatetowers' at Frankfurter Tor.