Summer 2004 | Berlin Days & Nights

At least we weren't the only ones who were lost. As we wandered up and down a poorly lit strip of Chausseestrasse,a street with about as much charm as when it was boxed in on three sides by the Berlin Wall, a desperate-looking group of young women lunged toward us

"Excuse me," one of them said as the other three crowded around us. "Do you know how we get to a club called Rio?"

My friend Christina, an American who had been living in Berlin for two years, replied that we were looking for the same place. The women seemed convinced that the club was a block or two south, but we told them that the doorman of a bar had pointed us in the other direction. Unimpressed with our source, they ran across the street to ask someone else.

We should have known better. Both Christina and I had been to bars and clubs in Berlin that were in the back of an apartment complex or in the basement of an office building. One had been at a construction site, and we huddled in the darkness with several strangers until a door opened and someone gestured for us to hurry inside. Not one of these places had been easy to find. What made us think that we could locate this place?

We did find it, though. At 2:10 a.m. as we stood outside the padlocked gate, we realized that we had come on the wrong night.

"Welcome to Berlin," Christina said. "You can't say you've really experienced the city until you've wasted hours searching for the hottest club."

"Excuse me," one of them said as the other three crowded around us. "Do you know how we get to a club called Rio?"

My friend Christina, an American who had been living in Berlin for two years, replied that we were looking for the same place. The women seemed convinced that the club was a block or two south, but we told them that the doorman of a bar had pointed us in the other direction. Unimpressed with our source, they ran across the street to ask someone else.

We should have known better. Both Christina and I had been to bars and clubs in Berlin that were in the back of an apartment complex or in the basement of an office building. One had been at a construction site, and we huddled in the darkness with several strangers until a door opened and someone gestured for us to hurry inside. Not one of these places had been easy to find. What made us think that we could locate this place?

We did find it, though. At 2:10 a.m. as we stood outside the padlocked gate, we realized that we had come on the wrong night.

"Welcome to Berlin," Christina enthused. "You can't say you've really experienced the city until you've wasted hours searching for the hottest club."

Bowling for Berlin

Bowling was the last thing I had in mind when Christina and I headed to the neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg on Friday night. But there I was, in the basement of a smoky little bar called August Fengler, standing in front of the most narrow pair of lanes I had ever seen. Whether this made it easier or harder I couldn't figure out, as the two blond boys who were playing consistently threw gutter balls.

"Want to give it a try?" one of them asked me, just before his boyfriend pressed him against the wall and playfully nibbled on his neck.

I declined, not certain I could do any better. I maneuvered around the Foosball tables and climbed up the steep steps to the ground floor. I spotted Christina, who was wearing her pink wool cap. She was admiring the gaudy glass chandeliers hanging over the bar, which she said was a sure sign that this place dated back to when this neighborhood was a part of East Berlin.

I glanced around at the other patrons. Most were young and straight, but the crowd was not as predominantly straight as I would have guessed. My two bowling buddies weren't the only other gay guys there. I spotted two men standing by the door, two more by the bar. And what about that table full of women in the corner?

It's been almost 15 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and walls are crumbling all over the place.

Not that there aren't plenty of gay establishments in the city. Pick up a copy of Siegess?ule or Sergej, the city's gay-bar rags, and you'll find listings for close to 150 bars and clubs. Longtime favorites such as SO36, where the city's huge Turkish population turns out for dance parties with male belly dancers, and GMF, a cavernous dance club where techno reigns supreme, still have lines around the block. It's just that now the options have increased exponentially.

?or about a century, gays have been gathering in Sch?neberg, a tangle of streets directly south of the Siegess?ule, the enormous victory column in the center of the Tiergarten. Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden came here in the Roaring Twenties during the heady days of the Weimar Republic, enjoying the wild parties in bars like Eldorado. It's still here at Motzstrasse 20, as is the apartment house at Nollendorfstrasse 17 where Isherwood created the unforgettable Fraulein Sally Bowles. And the Tierg??rten itself remains queer: Southwest of the victory column is an area affectionately dubbed "Tunten-wiese" or "Queens' Meadow," where fields of gays sunbathe au naturel in the summertime.

After World War II the city's gay population grew too big for Sch?neberg. Many gays living in the West began moving to Kreuzberg, a bohemian enclave in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. (The Schwules Museum, a gay archive that opened here in 1985, is locat?d at Mehringdamm 61.) In East Berlin, they gravitated to gritty Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain, where a somewhat flourishing scene existed in the face of dour socialism. Then the wall came tumbling down in 1989, and dozens of gay bars and clubs moved forward into the empty storefronts in these neighborhoods.

Sch?neberg is still the center of gay life, which is why it hosts Christopher Street Day, a gay pride celebration to be held this year on June 26 (outdone only by the massive, omnisexual, techno-fused Love Parade that fills the Tiergarten on July 1). But you'd seldom see a woman walk into a gay bar in Sch?neberg, or a man accompany his women friends to a lesbian party. In Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg, which have always been more about breaking down borders, the lines have been blurred, though.

Christina and I continued to the Bar zum Goldenen Hirschen, a happening spot in Prenzlauer Berg just down the street from August Fengler. Like many of the newer bars in this neighborhood, there's no sign outside. A curtain is pulled over the floor-to-ceiling windows, keeping the place incognito.

The doorman checks for our names on the computer, then waves us inside. After scoping out the place, we collapse onto a banquette next to two women who look like models. They work for a television studio, and are keeping an eye on the handsome actor who is working the room. They anticipate our next question and inform us that he is straight.

"But I think he might be the only straight man here," one of them adds, glancing about the room. She's exaggerating a bit. But at least half of the people perched on the white barstools or leaning against a wall painted in broad stripes in sorbet colors are gay. The DJ buzzes from group to group, distributing kisses like palm cards.

The loungy music puts us in a mellow mood. The two women eventually move on, and so do we. We have a lot of places we want to see before the weekend comes to an end.

The Road to Rio

Saturday afternoon found me in Prenzlauer Berg once again, browsing in the boutiques huddled around the intersection of Kastanienallee and Oderberger Strasse. Five designers joined forces to open Eisdieler, so named because they moved into a storefront once occupied by an ice cream parlor. You can join in the nostalgia for the socialist days of the German Democratic Republic with a sweatshirt emblazoned with the gold-tinted glass block called the Palace of the Republic (once the parliament building for East Germany, it is slated for demolition).

A few doors down is a clothing store called Eastberlin, where I try on a few belts with buckles that resemble those on airplanes. They don't have my size here, so I head down to Mitte to the other branch on Alte Sch?nhauser Strasse. I can't help but notice that most of the shops along this street don't bother to put up signs. That's why I almost passed by Ito, also recommended by a friend.

Christina had plans with her cousin, so I decided to meet an acquaintance at a venue called White Trash. Nobody had bothered to take down the decorations of the former tenant, which had been a Chinese restaurant. White Trash just added more, so now the ceiling is strung with pirate flags and pi?atas.

We crowded around a table with eight or nine other people, mostly expats. Three members of a band called Sex in Dallas are celebrating being signed by a record label. Two people are with Sex in Dallas's management company. One is a DJ who is remixing one of the band's singles. The talk inevitably turns to the club scene.

"It used to be that everyone would go to the gay clubs," said the DJ, taking a drag off a cigarette. "They always had better music, right? But I think that things have changed a lot in the past couple of years."

You're right," said one of the musicians. "Now people just go where they like the music, whether it's a gay place or not."

Our group began heading toward the door sometime before 2 a.m., discussing how many taxis we'd need to get to Rio. We were soon standing in front of the now-familiar gates. One of the members of the band said he was on the guest list, but the doorman seemed dubious. He punched a few buttons on his cell phone, and the owner emerged to escort us inside.

Backstage was crowded with couples of different sexual orientations making out on worn-out couches. Someone had dumped out the contents of a purse on a coffee table, and the band that would be playing that night was applying makeup that seemed suitable for A Clockwork Orange.

As I pushed open the door to the club, I could feel the heavy thump-thump-thump coming from the speakers. This was a small dance floor holding just a few dozen people. As I leaned against the wall, I spotted a familiar pink cap. Christina had ditched her cousin so she could check the place out. We headed to the main room, a cavernous space that had once been a warehouse. Video screens on three sides of the dance floor showed George W. Bush moving like a puppet.

We danced in the main room until almost 4 a.m.On our way out, I noticed the music on the smaller dance floor had changed to cheesy disco--so uncool that it's cool. A group of three or four gay guys near the DJ cheered every time he mixed in a new song. I smiled. It was good to know some things will never change.

ESSENTIALS

Accommodations

Inexpensive: Once the home of the androgynous Danish silent screen star Asta Nielsen, the art nouveau Hotel-Pension Funk (Fasanenstrasse 69; +49-30-8827193; $66–$117) includes a dramatic marble stairway, ready for your close-up.

Moderate: Barely a year old, Ku'Damm 101 (Kurf?rstendamm 101, Wilmersdorf; +49-30-5200550; $150–$200) is without a doubt one of the hippest hotels in the city. You'll either love or hate the minimalist decor.

Expensive: Although it's just steps from the bustle of Kurf?rstendamm, you can't get more relaxing that the circa-1900 Bleibtreu (Bleibtreustrasse 31, Wilmersdorf; +49-30-884740; $195–$298). Almost everywhere you turn is an original work of art, such as the 23-foot-long table covered with fragments of cobalt-colored ceramics in the courtyard. Breakfast in bed can be ordered with your television remote control. Better yet, have it in the Japanese-style tub. The elegant Dorint am Gendarmenmarkt (Charlottenstrasse 50-52, Mitte; +49-30-203750; $315–$475) has turned East Berlin's architectural vices into virtues. The cozy rooms--the hotel calls them "love boxes"--are cleverly designed so that everything folds away to make the most of the small space.  

Restaurants

Moderate:Cibo Matto (Rosenthalerstrasse 44, Mitte; +49-30-28385170; $10-$22) is where you can collapse onto one of the low-slung banquettes and enjoy a stuffed bagel. Drei (Lychener Strasse 30, Prenzlauer Berg; +49-30-41715718; $13-$20) makes your mouth water with its melon-colored interior and Asian-inspired dishes.

Expensive: The elegant Margaux (Unter den Linden 78, Mitte; +49-30-22652611; $25-$50) serves updated classics, like braised hare with chocolate and polenta.

Nightlife

There's something every night of the week at SO36 (Oranienstrasse 190, Kreuzber; +49-30-61401306), from head-banging bands to ballroom dancing. The last Saturday of the month is Gayhane, the Turkish dance treat. There's no sign at Bar zum Goldenen Hirschen (Lychener Strasse 42, Prenzlauer Berg; +49-30-54714680), so just follow the groups of well-dressed gay men.

East Germans loved bowling while under Communist rule, which may explain why the Soviet-era August Fengler (Lychener Strasse 11, Prenzlauer Berg; +49-30-44336640) has two lanes in its basement. There are plenty of hidden corners in the funky White Trash (Torstrasse 201, Mitte; +49-0179-4732639), so celebrities like Mick Jagger come not to be noticed. Open
only on Saturdays, Rio (Chausseestrasse 106, Mitte; no phone) is packed to the rafters with trend-loving teens and 20-somethings. On Sunday nights most gay guys (and a few gals) head to GMF (Karl-Marx-Allee 34, Mitte; +49-30-28095396), where a spiral staircase leads down to a temple of techno.

Shops

No self-respecting club kid heads out for the night without checking out the latest fashions at Eisdieler (Kastanienallee 12, Prenzlauer Berg; +49-30-2857351). Eastberlin (Kastanienallee 13, Prenzlauer Berg; +49-30-44046090; Alte Sch?nhauser Strasse 33-34, Mitte; +49-30-2472-4189) is where queers pick up belts and hats. One-of-a-kind fashions can be had at Ito (Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 5, Mitte, 49-30-4404-4490), where the casual wear is manufactured right on the premises.

Mark Sullivan is the writer of numerous travel guidebooks for Fodor's Travel Publications. His work has appeared in Billboard, Interview, and InStyle.

The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. We suggest that you confirm all details directly with the establishments mentioned before making travel plans. Please feel free to e-mail us at update@outtraveler.com if you have any new information.