Gesundbrunnen

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  Traffic flows across an intersection on Badstraße in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen. In the background, the Boateng brothers' huge graffiti is painted on a house wall.

• Bridge in Humboldthain

• Old building on Badstraße

• Detail of an old building on Badstraße

• Old building on Badstraße

• Außenansicht der Humboldthain-Grundschule in Berlin am Donnerstag (29.03.2012).

• Bathers enjoy themselves at the Humboldthain summer pool.

• Michael, a member of Mauergarten e.V., stands in the Mauergarten in the new construction section of Mauerpark.

• The grounds around the Uferhallen. The Uferhallen are a listed ensemble of buildings on the banks of the Panke River in the district of Berlin-Gesundbrunnen.

• The Berlin Wall Memorial on the former death strip on Bernauer Strasse.

• The sculpture of the wall jumper Hans Conrad Schumann hangs in the backlight on a house wall in Brunnenstraße, with the TV tower in the background.

• Aytami (l) and Javier from Spain climb up the wall of a former bunker in the Humboldthain in Berlin.

Gesundbrunnen combines cultural diversity, lots of shopping opportunities, and comparatively low rents. Another advantage is the proximity to Prenzlauer Berg.

The name of the district Gesundbrunnen is to be taken literally: It goes back to a mineral-rich spring discovered here in the middle of the 18th century. At the behest of Frederick II, the healing spring was opened to the public and a spa called Luisenbad was built. The Gesundbrunnen quickly became a popular place for excursions and a settlement grew up around the spring that built the basis of the current-day neighborhood.

Badstraße

The magnificent houses on Badstraße, which was named after Luisenbad, still bear witness to the former charm of the district. The oldest building is the Protestant Parish Church of St. Paul, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The Panke Mill is also preserved, although not in its original form. Built in the early 18th century as a fulling mill, it later became a paper mill and then a grist mill.

Today the old mill house is an office building. Badstraße is still the lifeline of the Wedding district. These days it is characterized by the many Turkish and Arab residents and stores. Sadly, no one can experience the healing properties of the water any more because the spring was accidentally buried during construction work in 1882.

Sights in Gesundbrunnen

Aside from the church and the mill, Gesundbrunnen is also home to the Gesundbrunnen-Center shopping mall. Next to it is Gesundbrunnen station zudem an important traffic junction of the city. Across the street, Humboldthain public park offers residents a lot of greenery, an outdoor pool, and an observation tower.

Berlin Wall Memorial

The area around the Gesundbrunnen train station offers a view characteristic of Wedding. Here, high-rises stand next to magnificent old buildings and multicultural junk stores offer everything the shopping mall does not. If you drive south along Brunnenstraße from Gesundbrunnen, you quickly reach the Berlin Wall Memorial located on the southern edge of the Brunnenviertel. The memorial reminds visitors of the eventful history of the neighborhood. The Wall Memorial includes a documentation center, the Chapel of Reconciliation, and a visitor center.

Soldiner Kiez

The neighborhood of Gesundbrunnen also includes Soldiner Kiez, which stretches between Osloer Straße in the south, Drontheimer Strasß and Holzstraße in the west, and the river Panke. The area features lush greenery along the watercourse, which includes the Franzosenbecken, a retention basin of the Panke at the churchyard of the French Church. To the west of it, there is also a large allotment garden area with trees and shrubs. Established as a settlement behind the Gesundbrunnen spring under Frederick the Great, the Soldiner Kiez is now managed by a neighborhood association.