Brett Neely

View from the Kiki Blofeld terrace. Image by danny q via Flickr

Berlin’s awesome “beach-side” bars along the Spree River could be (temporarily) saved by the collapsing commercial real estate market. Thank you, Great Recession!

There’s a lot of empty space in this city thanks to the last economic collapse (hey there, End of Communism!) and a whole series of bars/beach clubs have popped up along the Spree on plots of abandoned land. They’re awesome, low-key, DIY places that mostly involve hanging out on the banks of the river and enjoying a reasonably-priced beer (click here for annoying NYT “Berlin is sooooooo awesome” coverage).

I was just  at Kiki Blofeld, one such place (pictured to the right), the other night when a friend told me that Bar 25, across the river was closing soon. Today’s Berliner Zeitung says the land’s owner, Berlin’s street-cleaning authority, has given the bar a temporary stay of execution. And the article says at least one bar appears saved because a property developer has stalled plans for a massive building project on that stretch of the river.

I don’t really understand the obsession with mega-projects in this city. They already went through that phase, check out the Olympic Stadium or the Reichsluftfahtrsministerium (I love spelling that out) to see how that worked out. But even the recent projects, like Potsdamer Platz, have been a commercial disaster. There are already big, new marquee buildings along the Spree further down, and those always seem empty when I go past. The fact is, the big companies that are going to move into that kind of high-end real estate are perfectly happy in Frankfurt, Munich or Stuttgart. Why would they want to come here? Unemployment is stubbornly high and incomes are low.

Sure, the recession has brought lots of human misery with it (and will continue despite the recent ‘recovery’), but at least Berliners may hold onto their open space along the river for a while longer.