Brett Neely

A Berlin bus advertising one of the city's biggest brothels (Photo: Brett Neely, 2009)

Berlin is, and has been for a long time, broke. The city has lots of debt, it’s one of Germany’s least productive cities in terms of economic output, the number of citizens receiving social services is high. Etc. Sort of like DC, only much more livable and less dysfunctional.

You wouldn’t pull this revenue-generating measure off in DC though. The city’s transit agency has buses advertising for one of the city’s biggest brothels. Presumably that’s a lucrative ad contract to land.

The Artemis Web site even has a charmingly-written English section: “Artemis is a perfectly styled club, one of the most beautiful and largest wellness brothel establishments in Germany.”

Makes me think they’re marketing themselves to yoga-loving sex tourists.

Of course, Berlin lets anyone advertise on their buses. The southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has cheeky ads on Berlin buses that say, “It’s nice here, but have you been to Baden-Wuerttemberg?” It’s hard for me to imagine Georgia or Arizona taking out that ad on a DC city bus.