![]() ![]() Dealers and junkies have always been part of the neighbourhood fabric, even as Kotti’s rents have risen and its tourist and expat population exploded. Kotti was once the turf of mostly-Turkish street gang 36 Boys, who became famous not only for their muggings and extraordinary battles with neo-Nazis, but also for the notoriety later acquired by ex-gang members (from star chef Tim Raue to Germany’s most famous rapper-turned-ISIS jihadi Deso Dogg). Kottbusser Tor’s reputation as Berlin’s most derelict neighbourhood dates back to Kreuzberg’s days as an ‘island’ of punks, squatters and poor migrants, wedged up next to the Wall in the 1970s and 1980s. The topic: “ Kippt der Kotti?” Is Kotti on the edge of collapse? ![]() ![]() There are Turkish shop owners, ageing German hippies, young mothers, bespectacled hipster types, an African refugee, an overeager anarchist named Andre who won’t wait his turn to speak before spitting vitriol at the “ Bullen” (a derogatory term for the cops akin to “pigs”)… and about a dozen journalists. Up on the top floor, some 300 attendees mirror Kotti’s famed Kreuzberger Melange. ![]() The Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum is so packed that they’re showing a simulcast of tonight’s event on the third floor, on screens that normally display the video installation “Scenes from Görlitzer Park”. In any other part of Berlin, you’d expect a neighbourhood meeting called on the fifth floor of a museum to be attended only by a handful of cranky German retirees, a few concerned mothers and maybe a sprinkling of well-meaning students. What’s going on in Berlin’s most volatile Kiez? But recently, a rise in gang activity, assault and petty crime have led to the media dubbing Kotti a “no-go zone”. Photo by Miron Zownir Photo by Maria Runarsdottir Bustling with Germans, Turks, punks, queers, tourists, dealers, addicts, pickpockets and beggars – and the same homeless guy always preaching from the top of the phone booth – Kottbusser Tor’s never been boring. ![]()
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