What a load of ranting they did about Gelsenkirchen, the football fans and commentators who had to travel to this North Rhine-Westphalian “shithole” for a match during the European Championship! Hopefully these aesthetically demanding sports fans never come to Berlin. Otherwise they would have to realize that the center of the capital looks almost as depressing as the area around the Schalke Arena.
Is there anything sadder than crossing Friedrichstrasse on a warm August evening, with the dead Quartier 206 on the right, the dead Galeries Lafayette on the left, and the undead “House of Russian Culture” opposite? One block further on, the chaotic barriers at Gendarmenmarkt begin, and the concert hall stands out like an island from the construction fences, like West Berlin once did from the Soviet-occupied zone.
Dusty affair
Why, dear district authority, do music lovers who want to go to the “Young Euro Classic” festival have to cross a gravel path to reach the temple of the muses? Where there was once a sidewalk, dust and stones are now waiting to get stuck in the visitors’ open sandals. Is there a traffic police regulation for this harassment?
The rest of the route up to the entrance of the concert hall is also filthy and embarrassing. Is it really too much to ask that a sweeper drive over it in the afternoon so that the 1,400 visitors can enjoy the art without feeling disgusted?
If the responsible state authority fails, why doesn’t the concert hall itself take care of dusting the access routes? And why has the management of the hall tolerated the fact that it is impossible to pay cashless in the foyers for months?
We all know this from visiting a pizzeria: Unfortunately, the EC machine is broken, says the waiter, and the customer immediately suspects that they are trying to make a fool of themselves, as they say in the Ruhr region. But even if the concert hall caterer has no bad intentions, how does this “cash only” situation affect us in front of guests from countries where card payments work smoothly, even for amounts that are well under the seven euros for a 0.15 liter glass of wine?