What are the big waterpumps and what water source is the water from?

honestly a lot of those pumps are just for decoration now but some are still functional, like the one on Oranienburger Straße near the Tacheles ruin. fwiw they're all connected to the main water grid, not some separate well system, so it's the same water you'd get from a bathroom tap but it sits in the pipes longer and can pick up a little iron taste. if you're thirsty and don't have a bottle just stick to the newer stainless steel ones, they're cleaner and less rusty

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the ones you see around town are mostly from the old city waterworks, they're called "Stadtpumpen" or "Trinkbrunnen" in german. the water comes straight from the main supply lines, same stuff that comes out of your tap at home, just not chilled or carbonated. their original purpose was decorative and practical back in the day for horses and cleaning streets, now they're mostly for people to refill bottles or cool off in summer, especially at places like the one by the Rotes Rathaus

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yeah those are mostly "Plumpsbrunnen" if theyre the old cast iron ones with the push handle. they tap into the same groundwater network as the fire hydrants so technically drinkable but i wouldnt risk it unless you see a "Trinkwasser" sign on it. the ones near hackescher markt always have a weird metallic taste in summer

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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