BERLIN PAST: THE GHOSTS OF AM WEIDENDAMM

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Early 1870s view towards Am Weidendamm and the old water canal which later became Planckstraße. (Photo: F.A. Schwartz)

Today’s photo was taken around 1870 by one of Berlin’s best visual chroniclers, F.A.Schwartz, at the time when he himself lived nearby in Friedrichstraße.

The location on the 1891 Sineck-Plan of Berlin: the canal is clearly visible between Admiralsgarten-Bad and the Artillerie-Kaserne with the depots.

The view is practically impossible to match to today’s situation: the photographer stood on the northern bank of the Spree looking towards what is today Planckstraße, a street – built as Prinz-Louis-Ferdinand-Straße, in the filled-in bed of the water canal whose mouth you see in the picture. The then popular inn, the “Hammelkopf”, is visible on the left corner of the canal’s end.

The “Hammelkopf” (Ram’s Head) inn photographed by the same artist, F.A. Schwartz, in 1888.

Both the small canal and the inn would disappear soon as the city continued its steady northbound expansion.

The same spot on the 1910 Straubeplan of Berlin, with Prinz-Louis-Ferdinand-Straße running behind the Admirals-Garten and what is today Admiralspalast.