Sophie-Charlotte-Platz underground station
The Sophie-Charlotte-Platz U-Bahn station is a station on the U2 line of the Berlin U-Bahn . The station is located under the Kaiserdamm and south of the square named after Sophie Charlotte von Hannover in the district of Charlottenburg , it was opened on March 29, 1908.
history
At the beginning of the 20th century, numerous colonies developed on the edge of the greater Berlin area, which at that time still included the independent cities of Wilmersdorf , Charlottenburg , Schöneberg and Rixdorf . The Westend colony , to the west of Charlottenburg, had some deficits in terms of building development, not least because of the lack of transport links. At that time, there was already a section of the Berlin elevated and underground railway to the knee (today: Ernst-Reuter-Platz) was built, the idea of extending the underground to the colony arose from the Westend terracing company. After a few negotiations, the terrestrial company, its investor Deutsche Bank , the city of Charlottenburg and the elevated railway company signed a contract on June 23, 1906 for the construction of the line from Bismarckstraße station (today: Deutsche Oper ) to Reichskanzlerplatz in Westend .
The 2.6 kilometer long route included the construction of three train stations (Sophie-Charlotte-Platz, Kaiserdamm and Reichskanzlerplatz ) as well as the renovation and rescheduling of the Bismarckstraße train station, which is still under construction . The elevated railway company entrusted all planning and design tasks to its in-house architect, Alfred Grenander . Like the other stations, he designed the Sophie-Charlotte-Platz station with two side platforms ; the walls were given white, small-scale ceramic tiles . Grenander had skylights installed over the two platforms so that the station should have managed without artificial light during the day. The station name is reminiscent of Sophie Charlotte of Hanover , first Queen of Prussia and mother of the later " Soldier King ", who resided in the nearby Charlottenburg Palace. Kaiser Wilhelm II opened the Bismarckstraße - Reichskanzlerplatz route on the so-called "Kaiserfahrt" on March 19, 1908; the actual start of operations took place two weeks later on March 29, 1908.
Hardly anything changed at the station until the 1930s. It was not until 1938 that Albert Speer had an east-west axis built as part of the “ Germania ” plans , which would connect important main traffic axes within Berlin and, among other things, also give military parades the opportunity to display them. During this construction work, the entrances to Sophie-Charlotte-Platz station, which were previously on the central promenade, had to be relocated to the sidewalks. Speer also had the skylights of the station closed.
During the Second World War , the station was particularly hard hit on February 15, 1944; During an air raid , an aerial bomb hit the ceiling of the station, so that operations had to be temporarily suspended. Due to the approaching " final battle " and the poor energy supply, the BVG ceased operations on the Wittenbergplatz - Ruhleben route on April 25, 1945. In contrast to many other lines in the Berlin subway network, the branch between Ruhleben and Knie suffered relatively little damage, so that the first shuttle services could be started as early as May 17, 1945; the complete line A I on the route Ruhleben - Pankow ran again from September 15, 1946.
Again a period of everyday continuity followed for the station. There were only changes to the route destinations that could be reached from 1961 onwards. After the division of Berlin, the eastern part of the city with the terminus Pankow could no longer be approached from the train station. The trains of the then line 1 now went to the Schlesisches Tor underground station .
In 1977 the BVG had the access to Kaiserdamm / Schloßstraße roofed over. In 1986, one year before the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin , the station was completely renovated. Among other things, the Berlin transport company had the white tiles replaced with light gray ones. In addition, color panels with historical views and drawings of Berlin's underground history now adorned the station. Old wooden benches and fire extinguisher boxes from that time complement this theme. Thus the station Sophie-Charlotte-Platz presented almost a counterpart for in East Berlin located klosterstraße is that also the 750th anniversary of the city enamel panels received with the history of the Berlin traffic.
Only in the last few years have new changes occurred in the everyday life of the station. Due to a fire in the Deutsche Oper station on July 8, 2000, the BVG decided to equip all stations that only had one entrance with another. This also included the Sophie-Charlotte-Platz train station. Construction work on two entrances to the train station began at the end of 2005, and the southwestern entrance to Witzlebenstrasse was opened on May 4, 2006.
Since the end of 2015, one of the former train dispatcher pulpits has been used by the artist Marek Benczewski for changing exhibitions of sayings, drawings and other objects.
Since the train station is not one of the leading entries on the so-called "priority list" for the installation of elevators and the financing has been open for a long time, the construction of an elevator did not begin until 2019 and is expected to be completed in 2020.
Connection
At the underground station you can change from line U2 to bus line 309 of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe.
Web links
- BVG map of the train station (PDF; 40 kB)
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
- Description of the route Bismarckstraße - Ruhleben including pictures of the train station
- More pictures at untergrundbahn.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berliner Verkehrsblätter , November 1977 edition, p. 244
- ^ Fire in the Deutsche Oper underground station ( memento from June 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) at www.bestpractice-feuerwehr.de
- ^ Art in the pulpit . In: PLUS . March 2016, p. 12 f . ( online [accessed March 20, 2016]).
- ↑ Current list of priorities for the elevator program of the Berlin Senate 2011–2016 (PDF; 89 kB), Senate Department for Urban Development, December 9, 2008
- ↑ Written request from the Greens MP Michael Cramer regarding the elevator installation, list of priorities in the appendix (PDF; 166 kB), December 1, 2003, Senate Department for Urban Development
- ^ Carolin Brühl: Construction work on the Sophie-Charlotte-Platz subway station. January 24, 2019, accessed on May 6, 2019 (German).
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 39 ″ N , 13 ° 17 ′ 48 ″ E