Kopenhagener Straße

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Transformer Station Humboldt in the Kopenhagener Straße

The noteworthy Kopenhagener Straße in Berlin's popular Prenzlauer Berg district runs between the busy Schönhauser Allee in the East all the way to the Mauerpark in the West, marking where the Berlin Wall separated the Soviet sector from the French sector. At a length of 800 metres (1 half mile) it contains 61 apartment buildings built in the Jugendstil period and 4 more modern playgrounds. From East to West it is intersected by the Rhinower Straße, then crossed by the Sonnenburger Straße, then by the Ystader Straße, and finally ends at the Schwedter Straße at the Mauerpark. The Sonnenburger Straße bridge cossed the railway lines towards the north up until the end of World War II, when it was intentionally detonated to provide a hindrance to the advancing Soviet troops. Three buildings in the Kopenhagener Straße were destroyed in the process. As a replacement, a 60 metre long pedestrian bridge was installed during the governance of the GDR (German Democratic Republic).

A study prepared by the geography department at the Humboldt University of Berlin counted 45 different artists in the street, making this one of Berlin's significant creative functional clusters. Further one finds very many cafés, restaurants, bars and the infamous "Mittwochsclub" (the Wednesday Club located in the Cellar under the Kohlenquelle-café in Kopenhagener Str. 16). The most obvious structure in the street is the former Humboldt transformer station at Kopenhagener Straße 61 (on the corner of the Sonnenburger Str.), that was planned by the renowned German industrial architect Hans Heinrich Müller. An experimental urban children's farm (the Kinderbauernhof Prenzlauer Berg Moritzhof) is located at the West end of the Kopenhagener Str., providing the surreal view of horses and goats against a backdrop of dense urban housing and the television tower.

Despite the renovation and revival of the majority of the street's buildings since the fall of the German Democratic Republic in 1989, this cobblestone street maintains its pre-unification calm and creative charm. For this reason the Kopenhagener Straße was selected as the movie set for several movies that indulge in GDR nostalgia, for example Der Rote Kakadu and Sommer vorm Balkon.

The Kopenhagener Straße was inhabited by artists much before the German unification. Aside from artists, many actors, authors and architects also make the street their home or place of work. Approximately half of the current residents lived in the street or elsewhere in East Berlin before unification. Newer inhabitants are mostly from West Germany and other European countries.