When Berlin boomed Ritchie Robertson Iain Boyd Whyte and David Frisby, editors METROPOLIS BERLIN: 1880–1940 632pp. University of California Press. £59 (US $85). 978 0 520 27037 4 Published: 28 August 2013 “In the Café Unter den Linden” by Frank Newbould (1887–1951) “In the Café Unter den Linden” by Frank Newbould (1887–1951) Photograph: © SuperStock I n Theodor Fontane’s novel Irrungen, Wirrungen (On Tangled Paths, 1888), the protagonist, Baron Botho von Rienäcker, learns that his ex-girlfriend’s mother has died, and decides to place a wreath on the old lady’s grave. She is buried in the St Jakobi cemetery, located in what is now the Berlin suburb of Neukölln, and to get there, Botho takes a horse-drawn carriage. The road leading to the cemetery is not only lined with bars, stonemasons’ yards, and billboards with advertising slogans, but is also crowded with traffic. The various horse-drawn vehicles get entangled with one another, and Botho, for perhaps the first time in his life, experiences a traffic gridlock.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:07:07 +0000
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