Tim’s song “time” has now a video on youtube.
Bye the way the former cinema (“Kino Sojus“) you see there is – as what I read in the newspapers – currently intendead by the authorities to be turned into a shopping mall.
It was closed about 4 years ago.
Nad wrote: “..by the authorities to be turned into a shopping mall.”
It is good that this region gets finally developped. Isn’t that area part of east Germany, where they never got Bananas? However for hosting a shopping mall that cinema building looks quite small. And of course the spelling of “sojus” is incorrect, correctly you have to write: “So Juicy”.
I think this will soon surpass Gangnam Style as today’s most popular video! :) But seriously, nice to see Berlin as it is, as I love it, warts and all, and with the melancholic music quite suitable for the scenery, and even more affectingly sung.
But seriously, nice to see Berlin as it is, as I love it, warts and all,…
yes thanks for reminding me – you are of course right…but I guess you understand…facials are a bit expensive these days. :)
I am looking forward to hear more about how the trip to russia went and in particular I am of course looking forward to hear about your sold-out concert in St. Petersburg!!
What would you think would be an efficient use of the old cinema
if there is not enough space for a shopping mall?
Difficult question. I guess with “most efficient” you mean
in terms of economic development, i.e. something like profitable for the owner,
bringing in money and jobs? I don’t know what the current state of the planning
is and I have only limited information about the situation, so I have only vague guesses what could be an “efficient” use.
As I understand the current decisions in Berlin city-planning it looks at the moment as if there are soon rather big streets to be built WITHIN Berlin which are providing a new highway-like connection of the highway A10, which comes from the polish city of Szczecin to the southern part of the highway which goes nearby the town of Niemegk to southern/south-western parts of Europe, like Munich, Italy etc. This connection exists already now (however not everywhere in highway form) and is about 20 kms shorter than the currently most used highway routes, which go AROUND Berlin, via the socalled Berliner Ring. That is for the route around Berlin Google Routeplaner gives about 140 kms from Bernau (at the northern part of A10) to Niemegk, regardless wether you take the eastern or western ring. A direct route through Berlin over Märkische Allee and then either A9/A10 or A115/9 is about 120 kms long. The reason why this route has sofar not been overly used by intercity transport is that on one hand there are speed limits and some red lights along the way, but more important was sofar the fact that the connection between A10 and Märkische Allee via Ahrensfelde (sofar basically a little village road) and the connection in the south of Märkische Allee is not easy to find, goes to partially through rather small streets and thus has been jammed and has not really been suitable for trucks.
With the newly planned connections this is going to change.
Now one could argue that traffic is currently always increasing but that at least the route from Szczecin has yet not been overly used by really heavy trucks (in contrast to some other European highways) however this may change rather fast depending on the development of the baltic or russia’s north.
The former cinema Sojus is located very closed by the Märkische Allee right at one rather big entry lane. So it currently looks to me as if the most promising (near future) use for the cinema in terms of economic development could be for example a TRUCK- DRIVE-TROUGH, since there are sofar only small Imbissbuden along that lane.
But of course I might be wrong. That is nobody really knows how the gasoline prices develop, wether there are political regulations like toll road etc. to be installed a.s.o.
And frankly also if this might be the most efficient use I think it would not really be a desirable one.
“It is good that this region gets finally developped.”
Today there was a new report about the former cinema in the local newspaper with the title: Wirtschaftsstadtrat gibt dem Sojus als Kulturstandort keine Chance (translation without guarantee: “Alderman for economic development sees no future for Sojus as cultural location”
The last news I had heard before that was actually sounding more positive, namely that the location could be bought by the district, have a mixed purpose and that it was even thought that the city council may use the location as a meeting point. But according to the new article:
Laut Gräff stehen die Kaufverhandlungen eines Investors mit den Gläubigern kurz vor dem Abschluss. Ein Lebensmitteldiscounter hat sein Interesse an dem Standort signalisiert.
translation without guarantee:
“According to Gräff (name of the alderman) the buying negotiations with the debtees are almost done. A food discounter has signalised to have interest in that location.)
As far as I meanwhile understood this food discounter is probably the company Netto, the Sojus is going to be teared down, a new market will be built and its going to be big with a big parking lot in front of it. I had originally though understood that there were problems with the parking lots. That is the investors had demanded that some public and eventually residential parking spots would need to be turned into Netto parking spots (maybe the apparently planned underground parking lot is now enough). I don’t know what happened to this discussion, but it sounds as if someone was giving in concerning this question. I also don’t know why the district gave up on bying the location.
There are actually three (!) food discounters/supermarkets right next to the location and one market. One food discounter is Norma at Helene-Weigel-Platz 13 which is not even 50m from the location, one is Kaisers, which is about 80-100 m away (Helene-Weigel-Platz 1), the market is also on Helene-Weigel-Platz and one supermarket is Rewe at Marchwitzastr. 29, which is about 350m away. Rewe is right next to a old care home and enables old people to shop there. Norma -a food discounter- is considerably small for nowadays food discounters, but you get most daily needs there and it makes pedestrians more likely to enter a little shopping passage, which contains some small shops, like a small wool shop. As said there is a market directly on Helene-Weigel-Platz (50-100m) which has though not much food stands. Those who speak german, may see here what’s offered there. There is one stand (Obst und Gemüse Firma Meise) which offers fruits and veggies Mo-Fr and two stands with local specialities from Spreewald and Oderbruch which offer veggies etc. on Tue and Fri. The food stands are of course already under big pressure due to the supermarkets. All these 4 food locations will be heavily affected by the installment of a rather big food discounter and my little satirical comment about the drive-thru seems to have gained a rather realistic dimension.
There is a small neighbourhood initiative Kulturort Sojus, which now announced on its blog that with the new news about the finalizations of the negotiations with the food discounter it makes no sense to work out further concepts. The concept of a more cultural use was also favoured in the districts townhall meeting votes(which I unfortunately missed out).
I found the concept of a mixed usage actually rather convincing. I am not so sure though of having there a purely cultural/political location. That is I could imagine that a well-done realization as a small market hall (this can look in principle like this in small, pop-up store location, Volkshochschul-outlet, coworking space, etc for daily use and evening use for cinema, townhall meetings etc. but I haven’t seen the location from inside and this has to be done very well, like for example alone the question of the flooring and stooling and windowing is not so easy for such a mixed use. So this might get expensive and above all you need people who are good in organizing such a mixed use. The location is quite close to a S-Bahn station, which would enable even some interaction with the rest of Berlin.
But I agree with the initiative – it makes no sense to further think about the Sojus, if the food discounter investors are already on the door step.
According to the article in Berliner Woche Kino Sojus wird abgerissen there are apparently now concrete plans for tearing down the Sojus in winter. It is supposed to be replaced by a REWE super market (which probably implies that the REWE supermarket in the vicinity of that location right next to the old age home is going to be closed) and a multi-storey car park. Municipal councilor Christian Gräff (see also about his role in another destruction here) said according to Berliner Woche:
„Eine kulturelle Nutzung des Objekts war aufgrund seines Bauzustands nicht mehr möglich, der Abriss war die einzig verbleibende Option“
translation without guarantee:
Due to its bad constructional condition a cultural use of the object wasn’t anymore possible, demolition was the only remaining option.
In this context one should remark that the information who checked the condition of the cinema was not stated and that the last tenant who ran a cinema in the building had to move out in 2007 after which the building had been vandalized and that Mr. Gräff has been according to his vita been councillor since November 2006.
As I understand the current decisions in Berlin city-planning it looks at the moment as if there are soon rather big streets to be built WITHIN Berlin which are providing a new highway-like connection of the highway A10, which comes from the polish city of Szczecin to the southern part of the highway which goes nearby the town of Niemegk to southern/south-western parts of Europe, like Munich, Italy etc.
and
The former cinema Sojus is located very closed by the Märkische Allee right at one rather big entry lane. So it currently looks to me as if the most promising (near future) use for the cinema in terms of economic development could be for example a TRUCK- DRIVE-TROUGH, since there are sofar only small Imbissbuden along that lane.
That sounds to me quite as that Berlin-eas is cut off from the rest! Did the responsible city-planners conduct any studies, like traffic simulations and the like to find out about the consequences ?
@Lilia
Bye the way I would like to point out that my suggestion with the “TRUCK- DRIVE-TROUGH” was not meant seriously. I originally thought that this was clear, but I am not so sure anymore that everybody will perceive it as such.
Yes the Berlin quarters east to the highway would be quite cut off.
And the traffic would be a big strain to a very densely populated part of Berlin, since, as I tried to explain, this highway is a “shortcut” regarding the outer highway ring around Berlin.
I therefore actually dubbed this highway now “Sekante Ost” (secant line east) The problem is that this “cut-off” is still not seen as such. That is most people look only at parts of the highway, when discussing the problems. And some of them apparently don’t want to see it in this way. In particular I had something like 4, 5 years ago mentioned the problem in person to the districts head of the department for city planning and development Mr. Gräff. However he has kept on promoting the TVO in form of a unmoderated 4 lane highway. He had recently been elected into the Berlin city parlament, so chances for the TVO grew. Moreover apart from the green party all other major parties also support the TVO. In addition the planning process is not overly open, so I asked the district to set up a website with more details about whats going on and more possibilities to participation.
Regarding traffic simulations and the like: For the TVO city planners had made a socalled Umweltverträglichkeitsstudie (environmental compatibility study) which seems to deal with the direct surroundings and a Bedarfsermittlung (“need estimation”). In this study they didn’t do any simulations, but counted concrete traffic. On the last page it is written:
….detaillierte Berechnungen zur Verkehrsnachfrage für einen zukünftigen Zustand sind der modellgestützten
Verkehrsprognose und weiteren Arbeiten zur
verkehrlichen Begründung vorbehalten
translation without guarantee:
…detailed calculations with respect to the traffic demand for a future state are left to model based traffic prognosis’ and further works of traffic reasoning.
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April 21st, 2012 at 9:15 am
Nad wrote: “..by the authorities to be turned into a shopping mall.”
It is good that this region gets finally developped. Isn’t that area part of east Germany, where they never got Bananas? However for hosting a shopping mall that cinema building looks quite small. And of course the spelling of “sojus” is incorrect, correctly you have to write: “So Juicy”.
February 3rd, 2013 at 7:53 pm
I think this will soon surpass Gangnam Style as today’s most popular video! :) But seriously, nice to see Berlin as it is, as I love it, warts and all, and with the melancholic music quite suitable for the scenery, and even more affectingly sung.
February 6th, 2013 at 4:53 pm
SOHEIL !!! thanks for your comment and
yes thanks for reminding me – you are of course right…but I guess you understand…facials are a bit expensive these days. :)
I am looking forward to hear more about how the trip to russia went and in particular I am of course looking forward to hear about your sold-out concert in St. Petersburg!!
February 8th, 2013 at 6:47 pm
Soheil, by the way: What happened to the apple sauce? Did you take it with you to Russia ?! ?!
May 27th, 2013 at 10:24 am
What would you think would be an efficient use of the old cinema
if there is not enough space for a shopping mall?
May 27th, 2013 at 11:52 am
Difficult question. I guess with “most efficient” you mean
in terms of economic development, i.e. something like profitable for the owner,
bringing in money and jobs? I don’t know what the current state of the planning
is and I have only limited information about the situation, so I have only vague guesses what could be an “efficient” use.
As I understand the current decisions in Berlin city-planning it looks at the moment as if there are soon rather big streets to be built WITHIN Berlin which are providing a new highway-like connection of the highway A10, which comes from the polish city of Szczecin to the southern part of the highway which goes nearby the town of Niemegk to southern/south-western parts of Europe, like Munich, Italy etc. This connection exists already now (however not everywhere in highway form) and is about 20 kms shorter than the currently most used highway routes, which go AROUND Berlin, via the socalled Berliner Ring. That is for the route around Berlin Google Routeplaner gives about 140 kms from Bernau (at the northern part of A10) to Niemegk, regardless wether you take the eastern or western ring. A direct route through Berlin over Märkische Allee and then either A9/A10 or A115/9 is about 120 kms long. The reason why this route has sofar not been overly used by intercity transport is that on one hand there are speed limits and some red lights along the way, but more important was sofar the fact that the connection between A10 and Märkische Allee via Ahrensfelde (sofar basically a little village road) and the connection in the south of Märkische Allee is not easy to find, goes to partially through rather small streets and thus has been jammed and has not really been suitable for trucks.
With the newly planned connections this is going to change.
Now one could argue that traffic is currently always increasing but that at least the route from Szczecin has yet not been overly used by really heavy trucks (in contrast to some other European highways) however this may change rather fast depending on the development of the baltic or russia’s north.
Like a typical route from Kalinigrad to Berlin goes over Szczecin. Likewise the route from the harbour of Gdansk. Kaliningrad is approximately as far away from Berlin as Munich.
The former cinema Sojus is located very closed by the Märkische Allee right at one rather big entry lane. So it currently looks to me as if the most promising (near future) use for the cinema in terms of economic development could be for example a TRUCK- DRIVE-TROUGH, since there are sofar only small Imbissbuden along that lane.
But of course I might be wrong. That is nobody really knows how the gasoline prices develop, wether there are political regulations like toll road etc. to be installed a.s.o.
And frankly also if this might be the most efficient use I think it would not really be a desirable one.
May 27th, 2013 at 1:31 pm
яркая бизнес-идея !!!!!!!!!
June 10th, 2015 at 9:04 am
Today there was a new report about the former cinema in the local newspaper with the title:
Wirtschaftsstadtrat gibt dem Sojus als Kulturstandort keine Chance (translation without guarantee: “Alderman for economic development sees no future for Sojus as cultural location”
The last news I had heard before that was actually sounding more positive, namely that the location could be bought by the district, have a mixed purpose and that it was even thought that the city council may use the location as a meeting point. But according to the new article:
translation without guarantee:
As far as I meanwhile understood this food discounter is probably the company Netto, the Sojus is going to be teared down, a new market will be built and its going to be big with a big parking lot in front of it. I had originally though understood that there were problems with the parking lots. That is the investors had demanded that some public and eventually residential parking spots would need to be turned into Netto parking spots (maybe the apparently planned underground parking lot is now enough). I don’t know what happened to this discussion, but it sounds as if someone was giving in concerning this question. I also don’t know why the district gave up on bying the location.
There are actually three (!) food discounters/supermarkets right next to the location and one market. One food discounter is Norma at Helene-Weigel-Platz 13 which is not even 50m from the location, one is Kaisers, which is about 80-100 m away (Helene-Weigel-Platz 1), the market is also on Helene-Weigel-Platz and one supermarket is Rewe at Marchwitzastr. 29, which is about 350m away. Rewe is right next to a old care home and enables old people to shop there. Norma -a food discounter- is considerably small for nowadays food discounters, but you get most daily needs there and it makes pedestrians more likely to enter a little shopping passage, which contains some small shops, like a small wool shop. As said there is a market directly on Helene-Weigel-Platz (50-100m) which has though not much food stands. Those who speak german, may see here what’s offered there. There is one stand (Obst und Gemüse Firma Meise) which offers fruits and veggies Mo-Fr and two stands with local specialities from Spreewald and Oderbruch which offer veggies etc. on Tue and Fri. The food stands are of course already under big pressure due to the supermarkets. All these 4 food locations will be heavily affected by the installment of a rather big food discounter and my little satirical comment about the drive-thru seems to have gained a rather realistic dimension.
There is a small neighbourhood initiative Kulturort Sojus, which now announced on its blog that with the new news about the finalizations of the negotiations with the food discounter it makes no sense to work out further concepts. The concept of a more cultural use was also favoured in the districts townhall meeting votes(which I unfortunately missed out).
I found the concept of a mixed usage actually rather convincing. I am not so sure though of having there a purely cultural/political location. That is I could imagine that a well-done realization as a small market hall (this can look in principle like this in small, pop-up store location, Volkshochschul-outlet, coworking space, etc for daily use and evening use for cinema, townhall meetings etc. but I haven’t seen the location from inside and this has to be done very well, like for example alone the question of the flooring and stooling and windowing is not so easy for such a mixed use. So this might get expensive and above all you need people who are good in organizing such a mixed use. The location is quite close to a S-Bahn station, which would enable even some interaction with the rest of Berlin.
But I agree with the initiative – it makes no sense to further think about the Sojus, if the food discounter investors are already on the door step.
September 1st, 2016 at 9:36 pm
According to the article in Berliner Woche Kino Sojus wird abgerissen there are apparently now concrete plans for tearing down the Sojus in winter. It is supposed to be replaced by a REWE super market (which probably implies that the REWE supermarket in the vicinity of that location right next to the old age home is going to be closed) and a multi-storey car park. Municipal councilor Christian Gräff (see also about his role in another destruction here) said according to Berliner Woche:
translation without guarantee:
In this context one should remark that the information who checked the condition of the cinema was not stated and that the last tenant who ran a cinema in the building had to move out in 2007 after which the building had been vandalized and that Mr. Gräff has been according to his vita been councillor since November 2006.
December 21st, 2016 at 9:39 am
nad had written:
and
That sounds to me quite as that Berlin-eas is cut off from the rest! Did the responsible city-planners conduct any studies, like traffic simulations and the like to find out about the consequences ?
December 21st, 2016 at 11:31 am
@Lilia
Bye the way I would like to point out that my suggestion with the “TRUCK- DRIVE-TROUGH” was not meant seriously. I originally thought that this was clear, but I am not so sure anymore that everybody will perceive it as such.
Yes the Berlin quarters east to the highway would be quite cut off.
And the traffic would be a big strain to a very densely populated part of Berlin, since, as I tried to explain, this highway is a “shortcut” regarding the outer highway ring around Berlin.
I therefore actually dubbed this highway now “Sekante Ost” (secant line east) The problem is that this “cut-off” is still not seen as such. That is most people look only at parts of the highway, when discussing the problems. And some of them apparently don’t want to see it in this way. In particular I had something like 4, 5 years ago mentioned the problem in person to the districts head of the department for city planning and development Mr. Gräff. However he has kept on promoting the TVO in form of a unmoderated 4 lane highway. He had recently been elected into the Berlin city parlament, so chances for the TVO grew. Moreover apart from the green party all other major parties also support the TVO. In addition the planning process is not overly open, so I asked the district to set up a website with more details about whats going on and more possibilities to participation.
Regarding traffic simulations and the like: For the TVO city planners had made a socalled Umweltverträglichkeitsstudie (environmental compatibility study) which seems to deal with the direct surroundings and a Bedarfsermittlung (“need estimation”). In this study they didn’t do any simulations, but counted concrete traffic. On the last page it is written:
translation without guarantee: