The Short Line

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By Alexander Daily:

In the southeast of Berlin’s inner ring there is a gentle ravine that stretches between the hearts of two of the city’s more bourgeoisie quarters. This depression, carved out by long gone glaciers, is of considerable length but not very wide. Its ground being too soft to build on, the decision was made at the turn of the last century to cultivate it into the People’s Park. Trees line the edges of the ravine and further seclude the sloping lawns and playgrounds nestled between them. A curious feature, for a park, is the Berlin subway station Rathaus Schöneberg. This teutonically neoclassical station is truly in the park. The tracks of the subway exit one side of the ravine and delve into the other, sheltered by the stone structure of the station, forming a bridge under which one cannot cross.

As a non-native transplant from the US, I first experienced this curious edifice running at night along a path that follows the curve of the ravine. I became aware of a long, squat cathedral with the gleaming windows of a glass palace. It seemed to mark the end of the valley and I could not guess its purpose. As I drew closer, behind the bright panes the unmistakable mustard-yellow form of a Berlin subway train rolled into view. I chose to continue my run, but I was excited at the prospect of experiencing the station from the inside.

This was a familiar pattern of my early time in Berlin, for there was much to see that divulges the unique character of the city, and making plans comes easy to lonely new arrivals. For a person with no business at or around the Rathaus, however, the chances of riding through the station are slim. The line that services it, the U4, is curiously short. The primary function of its 2.86km and five stations is to connect the quarter of Schöneberg to the wider Berlin network. The days passed, I traveled other routes; moved to a different part of the city. Schöneberg became the only word I had to go on, a clue that stymied me, as another station carries this name. Passing through the busier, almost homonymous station one day, I noticed it is nowhere near as nice from the inside, nor located in a park. Time continued to elapse, but this trip allowed me to eliminate one of two potential candidates from the subway map.

Having narrowed things down, I headed to Innsbrücker Platz, the southern terminus of the U4. Consistent with the diminutive nature of the line, the trains that service it are only ever composed of two cars and depart every twenty minutes. One waited at the platform, the color and length reminiscent of the school buses of my home country. I boarded, and a few minutes later the train lurched and stuttered out of the station. As we rolled into Rathaus Schöneberg I was able to finally experience, with a certain sense of triumph, the low-key sublimity of sitting simultaneously in a Berlin park while in the Berlin underground.

The many parks of Berlin are dependable places to find natural recuperation. It is an understated quality of this city that most every flat has some bit of communal green near it, or a subway station within reach to get there. In their number and variety, the parks of Berlin are also sources of great adventure and mystery. Each has its own quirks for connoisseurs to discover. A sunny day poses a hard question: stick with a reliable known quantity or venture to some new verdant expanse.

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For the past decade, Alexander has been exploring the more curious corners of Berlin. In addition to trains and parks, the part he likes most about the city is stumbling upon something previously unknown to him.