1992 Prenzlauer Allee 16 – documentary photography: photo series and photo story, photos by Andreas Muhs

Prenzlauer Allee 16, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1992, 34 photos, analogue

Prenzlauer Allee 16 was my first address in Berlin from mid-1991, located as close to the TV Tower as my one-room apartment in Hamburg. At that time, there was practically no free housing market in the eastern part of the city. I was all the more grateful for the alleged family contact that led me to an apartment with a tenancy agreement. The other apartment this strange contact showed me was still furnished with all the previous tenant's personal belongings. Even a shelf with canned fruit and vegetables was still in the hallway. Only the burnt-out kitchen would have needed renovation. That's why, in my new ground-floor apartment, neither the view from the kitchen window onto the neighboring cemetery nor the view through the floorboards into the coal cellar bothered me. The shower cabin with its dripping head and gasping pump for wastewater was in the kitchen. I simply had to get used to the wallpaper on the four-meter-high walls. With some skill, I could cycle between the two living rooms; in one, I only stored the coal sacks. I quickly got used to my breath cloud on winter mornings. However, I had underestimated what would happen if the coal stoves were not used for a few days. Due to frozen water pipes, I had to move to the western part of the city for a short time. One day I discovered the burned-down notice board in the stairwell. What remains are fragments of the history of the house and its residents, which only become visible in close-ups.

Canon New F-1 + 50 mm Macro