Anatomy of an apartment

Them Bones, Them Bones . . .

Neue Kantstraße 3

I have to admit: I have sometimes complained about certain features of this apartment. The wood floors have slivers. The floorboards squeak. The bathroom sink and the washing machine leak. I can't keep the floors clean. The walls and molding desperately need a good paint job. Yada yada yada.

But what wins me back every time are those beautiful bones. Like an aging diva, she's got her wrinkles and extra pounds and leaks, but you just can't ignore her gorgeous bones. Built in 1906 in the heyday of the ritzy Charlottenburg neighborhood, less than a mile from Princess Sophie Charlotte's castle, this was a city apartment for the upper crust, the landed gentry. From here one could easily promenade to the Kurfüstendamm or Savignyplatz to see and be seen. Here was the representative salon for entertaining the society denizens.

Just imagine the maid
opening these spectacular Art Niveau
stained glass double doors and saying,
"Dinner is served, my lady."

Or peeping at your callers
through the beehive keyhole on these locks.
(See the bee buzzing nearby?)

Or glancing out the window to see
what Baron Schmidt and his wife
are eating for dinner tonight
in their dining room across the tree-lined street.

Or waltzing on the polished parquet floors.

Or refreshing yourself with cool water
from the recessed sink in the water closet.

Or walking out through this grand front door
to take your spoiled Berliner Hund for a walkchen.

When you went to give instructions to the cook
for the evening's meal,
you'd admire the Delft tiles imported from Holland
that decorate the kitchen walls.

The cook could always run to the market
through the hidden kitchen door
to the spiral staircase that the servants used.
The old gas lamps are still in their original recessed panels.

Wait a second, how did this picture get in here?
The poor maid's closet-sized bedroom
is now our overpacked storeroom!
Fortunately, she doesn't mind.

What's that rattling? Ah, yes, them bones, them bones, them dry bones . . . them dry Berliner bones!