Nicolai Quarter - Ephraim Palace

In 1935, to make room for new streets, the Ephraim Palace in Berlin's Nikolaiviertel was dismantled from its site near the Mühlendamm Bridge to the southwest. It has now been re-erected 16 m/18yd away. For this purpose in 1983, 2,493 numbered stone blocks and pillars which had been stored in West Berlin were handed over to the East Berlin authorities, and the Palace was ceremoniously re-opened in 1987. In 1763-64, based on plans drawn up by the well-known architect F. W. Diterichs, the former vaulted house was extended to accommodate the new owner Nathan Veitel Heine Ephraim, Frederick the Great's master of the mint. It was made into a four-storied palace in fine Roccoco style with a rounded corner facade and splendid balconies, and became known as "the most beautiful corner in Berlin." Inside the building, with its attractive staircase, some rooms are occupied by the Märkisches Museum for exhibitions of Berlin art from the 17th to the early 19th C. There is a cafe on the ground floor. If you walk round the Ephraim Palace and along the banks of the Spree (Spreeufer) you will come to a small square where stands the bronze statue of the "Slayer of the Dragon" ("St. George fighting the Dragon": 1856) by August Kiss. From 1865 it was displayed in the First Courtyard of the Berlin State Palace. After the Second World War it was moved to the Friedrichshain Public Park.

Molkenmarkt near Nikolaiviertel

The Molkenmarkt (Whey Market), known in the Middle Ages as the Old Market, was the site of the first settlement that grew to become Berlin. The first Town Hall was built here, and from this square the oldest river-crossing, the Mühlendamm (Mill Causeway), spanned the River Spree to link Berlin and Cölln.

Molkenmarkt is dominated by the 80m/260ft high tower of the "Altes Stadthaus" (Old Town Hall). This was built in 1902-11 to plans by Ludwig Hoffmann to accommodate those departments of the city council which could no longer be housed in the Red Town Hall. During the GDR period it housed GDR government offices. Today it is the home of a branch of the Federal Chancellery.

Here, too, stood the "Alte Krögel", or old Municipal Prison, which became the new Mint in 1935. The Mint and the adjoining Schwerin Palace (built in 1704 by Jean de Bodt) later housed the East German Ministry of Culture. Along the front of the building is a frieze by Gottfried Schadow from the Schwerin Palace, copied by Schadow from one by Friedrich Gilly on the old Mint. The original can now be seen on the building at Spandauer Damm 42-44 in Charlottenburg.