Antique filling station

Achtung! Someone who evidently doesn't want people to have nice things removed these antique gas pumps in 2016. Who knows if they'll ever see the light of day again.

Out of gas

Berlin is forever itching to be scratched. Scratch beneath the surface, you never know what you’ll find.

Hidden courtyards hold wonderful secrets and historical gems, like this antique gas station from a bygone era that was masked by a nondescript grey building.

The Tankstelle at Muskauer Straße in Kreuzberg hadn’t been pumping gas since the Watergate scandal broke, though I’m not sure the two are connected. The reasons for its closing were not immediately made clear by the dude eying me suspiciously as I took photos of it back in 2013.

“It was opened in 1927, closed in 1972 and the tank over there could hold 1,000 liters’ Benzin,” he told me.

In hindsight, 1,000 liters doesn’t seem like much, so maybe that’s the reason it closed. Or perhaps I misheard him.

There wasn’t much information available about this place, possibly one of the reasons it survived for so long before the gas pumps suddenly disappeared in early 2016.

I was told they were taken away while refurbishment works were being carried out, but the works have been carried out and the pumps never returned.

What’s left of the Tankstelle is still used to a degree – the garages on two levels serve as Parkingplätze by people who don’t want to leave their precious vehicles out on the anarchy-filled streets.

But it’s hard to believe the old pumps are gone. They weren’t the type of thing you can easily destroy.

You’d need Molotov cocktails, and the last place you’re going to find gasoline for Molotov cocktails is at a disused gas station where there hasn’t been any gasoline for almost half a century.

In the end, “development” did the job.

Filed 14/11/2013 | Updated 14/2/2020