Leipziger Strasse in Berlin is over 1.5km/1mile long and leads from Spittelmarkt westwards to Leipziger Platz. Before the last war it was a lively shopping street with mainly department stores and fashion houses, but today, with its tall apartment buildings dating from the seventies, its shops and boarding houses, it presents a completely different picture.
Since the Berlin Wall came down it has been one of the main streets linking the two halves of the city and is choked with traffic. On the redesigned Spittelmarkt, which owes its name to the St Gertrude Spital (hospital) that originally stood here, the red and gray granite Spindler Fountain -- given to the city by the firm of Spindler back in 1891 -- was re-erected here in 1980. West of the Spittelmarkt a section of the old Leipziger Colonnade (built in 1776 by Gontard) has been reconstructed using parts of the original. At the junction with Jerusalemer Strasse (Leipziger Str.
No. 60) can be found the Czechoslovakian House of Culture in the building which was once housed the Tietz department store. At Leipziger Strasse 26, on the left on the far side of its junction with Friedrichstrasse, is the International Music Library. On the opposite corner (junction with Mauerstrasse) stands the former Ministry of Postal and Telephone Services, now the home of the Postal Museum. On the western side of Otto-Grotewohl-Strasse (formerly Wilhelmstrasse) is the erstwhile Imperial Air Ministry of 1934-36, used by the East Germans as their "House of Ministers." It is now the headquarters of a trust company and adjoins the old Prussian Upper Chamber (1904). Taking up almost the whole of this section of the opposite side of the street is the massive Wertheim store, once the largest in Europe.
Leipziger Strasse enters Leipziger Platz, which was once surrounded by large townhouses and - together with Potsdamer Platz-- was then Berlin's most important traffic intersection. There are plans to rebuild it in its original octagonal Baroque form, based on the historical plans, with hotels, cinemas, houses and shops.
The Postal Museum in the former East Berlin was founded in 1872 as the Imperial Post Museum and is the oldest of its kind in Europe. After suffering severe losses during the Second World War it was reopened in 1948.
The museum developed out of an exhibition of plans and models in the old General Post Office by Heinrich von Stephan into a rich collection illustrating the development of postal services and telecommunications, from the ancient Greek method of conveying messages by a form of telegraphy using torches to the modern Telex system. There is also a collection of postage stamps.
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The roof of the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
Historic traffic light on Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.
The Potsdamer Platz and railway station in Berlin.
Night view of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
Lights at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
