Prenzlauer Berg Redux

Prenzlauer Berg Redux

“I still stand on that hill, the Prenzlauer Berg is called. From here I went in all directions, driven, flown. Subheadings I keep coming back. From some encounters there fixed links have emerged. From other fine threads have been preserved. Some are parallels. Some intersect. Many I’ve even interwoven. Here the friendly associated collaborators make new threads in the power of cooperation, take on organic forms, interpret them, they continue to – organismo universalis.”

Gee, I wish I had written that.  Instead I have lifted it from the brochure describing the Threads of Connection exhibition

http://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/en/exhibitions/organische-verbindungen-threads-of-connection/

at the Pankow Museum

http://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/en/museums/museumsverbund-pankow-prenzlauer-allee-227/

So once again I talk about Prenzlauer Berg.

Having passed many times both the front entrance of the museum on Prenzlauer Allee and its back entrance on Kolmarer Str. across from Wasserturm park, this week I decided I had to go in before I left.  Both the exhibition in the main building, which tracks the neighborhood, especially the Jewish community and the Rykestrasse Synagogue,

 

The pictures are of Jewish life and the map of the area before the removal of the Jews.  The legend below the two girls says they were departed to Lodz and died in 1941.

the Threads of Connection exhibition, from which the quote came, is in the small building across the plaza on the museum grounds

Both were stirring, thought provoking and entertaining.   The museum, which has all its signs and exhibitions in German and no English speaking volunteers or workers that I found, is a gem I would guess most visitors to Berlin would miss.

I have been so fortunate in my random choices on this trip.

I’ll make this a short one.  I should be finishing my packing.  My last two meals on my last day in Berlin were breakfast at Hilde and dinner at Masel Topf (the Malibu ice cream parlor on Knaackstrasse facing Wassertum part was about to close so I had dessert first).  It hasn’t been my process to repeat on my journeys because that is contrary to the neophilia but I make exceptions.  Hilde and Masel Topf were wonderful exceptions.

Hilde is on the cornder of Prenzlauer Allee and Metzer Str., where the M2 stops.  The owner of Hilde is an admirer of the actress and singer Hildegard Knef (in the US the spelling was Neff) and named her café for her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_Knef

Masel Topf is a Russian Jewish restaurant, on Rykestrasse across from the synagogue and a stones throw from the Wasserturm.  It’s Pulka is the best dish I’ve eaten in Berlin.

Both are in the neighborhood and I feel so fortunate to have randomly chose Berlin and this neighborhood.  It has become home.

I was able to walk to most things because of the proximity of the apartment to most things I did and wanted to do and when I didn’t walk, the transit system stops were so close it was never a problem.  So even though I borrowed from The Book of Clouds and made the t.v. tower at Alexanderplatz my sign in the sky that if I could see it I could get home, I think it was the Wassserturm that was my real security blanket.

“I still stand on that hill, the Prenzlauer Berg is called. From here I went in all directions, driven, flown. Subheadings I keep coming back. From some encounters there fixed links have emerged. From other fine threads have been preserved. Some are parallels. Some intersect. Many I’ve even interwoven. Here the friendly associated collaborators make new threads in the power of cooperation, take on organic forms, interpret them, they continue to – organismo universalis.”

I just can’t say it any better.  It would be hard for me to believe that I will not return.