Berlin U-Bahn U2 Ride - Mohrenstraße to Nollendorfplatz | Germany | 10/11/24

Riding the Berlin U-Bahn U2 from Mohrenstraße to Nollendorfplatz. Germany | 10/11/24
Mohrenstraße is a Berlin U-Bahn station on line U2, located in the district of Mitte.
The station is located at the western end of the eponymous Mohrenstraße, which runs in an east-west direction. Its western entrance opens up to the north-south crossing Wilhelmstraße and is located opposite the junction with Voßstraße. The east entrance is located at Glinkastraße.
History
The original station designed by Alfred Grenander opened on 1 October 1908 on the new branch from Potsdamer Platz to Spittelmarkt. It was then called Kaiserhof after the nearby grand hotel on the Wilhelmplatz square, was designated by black and white at platform level, and had an oval opening to the stairs and a booking hall with elaborate tilework at the Wilhelmstraße end. This entrance was rebuilt in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics, to provide more space for parades at the adjacent Reich Chancellery. The station was severely damaged in World War II on 3 February 1945.
The rebuilt station, now located in East Berlin, reopened on 18 August 1950 as Thälmannplatz, to which the Wilhelmplatz square had been renamed for the communist leader Ernst Thälmann. The interior was lined with marble, which was long believed to have been taken from Hitler's New Reich Chancellery. However, according to the East Berlin newspapers Neues Deutschland and Berliner Zeitung from 19 August 1950, the marble for the station was delivered directly from quarries in Thuringia. In more recent times, petrographic research confirmed this origin of the material.
With the erection of the Berlin Wall from 13 August 1961, the line ceased to run between East and West Berlin and the station became the terminus of the line in East Berlin. Beginning in 1986 the square was overbuilt by a housing estate and the Czechoslovakian Embassy, and on 15 April 1986 the station was renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße, the name of Wilhelmstraße at that time, after the politician Otto Grotewohl.
On 3 October 1991, following German reunification, the station was renamed again to Mohrenstraße. The line was reconnected on 13 November 1993 and simultaneously reconfigured, forming a new U2 line between Vinetastraße in the east and Ruhleben in the west.
Nollendorfplatz is a Berlin U-Bahn station on lines U1, U2, U3, and U4. It opened in 1902, and today is the only station in Berlin that is served by four U-Bahn lines, and the only one served by all of the Kleinprofil (small profile) lines.
Overview
The station, and the plaza named after Nakléřov in the Czech Republic, lies in the north of Schöneberg at the junction of Motzstraße, Kleiststraße and Bülowstraße. The area is an important centre of gay culture, and the nearby Winterfeldtplatz is home to a well known market. It became a more run down centre of heroin addiction, punks, and squatters in the 1970s and early 1980s, and has seen a comeback into the (somewhat intellectual) mainstream culture with higher rents and upscale restaurants and bookshops. In this it resembles (and indeed was a role model for) the western part of Kreuzberg. In 2002, the station was given an Art Nouveau styled dome, which resembles the one it had before World War Two, designed by Cremer & Wolffenstein.
U2 is a line of the Berlin U-Bahn. The U2 line starts at Pankow S-Bahn station, runs through the eastern city centre (Alexanderplatz) to Potsdamer Platz, the western city centre (Wittenbergplatz, Zoologischer Garten, Theodor-Heuss Platz) and finally to the Ruhleben terminal station.
The U2 has 29 stations and a length of 20.7 kilometers (12.9 mi). Together with the U1, U3, and U4 lines, it was part of the early Berlin U-Bahn network built before 1914. The line between Potsdamer Platz and Zoologischer Garten was the western section of the "stem line" (Stammstrecke), Berlin's first U-Bahn line opened in 1902.