Markthalle Neun: The Market Hall Its Neighbours Saved
Why is it significant?
Step through the doors of the brick hall on Eisenbahnstraße and let your nose lead: coffee, fresh bread, smoked meat, cheese, spices. Above you, iron trusses and skylights; around you, stalls of farmers, bakers and cooks, and long shared tables full of people talking with their mouths full.
Key Facts
| Place | Markthalle Neun: The Market Hall Its Neighbours Saved |
|---|---|
| Address | Eisenbahnstraße 42-43, 10997 Berlin, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.50220, 13.43150 |
| Part of Walk | Berlin Kreuzberg: Street Art, Punk Clubs & the Landwehrkanal |
| Generated | Generated |
Step through the doors of the brick hall on Eisenbahnstraße and let your nose lead: coffee, fresh bread, smoked meat, cheese, spices. Above you, iron trusses and skylights; around you, stalls of farmers, bakers and cooks, and long shared tables full of people talking with their mouths full.
This is Markthalle Neun, market hall number nine, opened in 1891. In the 1880s and 1890s Berlin built more than a dozen municipal market halls to get food trading off the filthy, crowded open-air markets and under a roof, with hygiene rules, cool cellars and proper drainage. They were the supermarkets of the imperial capital, and Kreuzbergers did their weekly shop here for generations, carrying home cabbages, herring and potatoes from the stalls under these same iron beams.
Modern supermarkets nearly finished them off. Most of the old halls were bombed or demolished, and by the 2000s this one was half empty, with a discount supermarket and a few tired stalls. When the city planned to sell it to the highest bidder, neighbours campaigned to keep it a market, and around 2010 the hall went instead to a small group of local people with a plan built around regional food and small producers.
It worked better than anyone expected. Its street food evenings helped launch a whole new Berlin food scene, cooks from every corner of the world found their first customers here, and there is a bakery and a small brewery under the same roof. Not everyone is thrilled: some neighbours complain the hall has become a food temple for visitors, and the fight over the cheap supermarket inside became a local battle. In Kreuzberg, gentrification is never far from the menu.
Buy something small and eat it standing up, the Berlin way. Then wander north-west through the side streets towards Mariannenplatz, where a long green square ends at a building with two slender towers.