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What happened to "Play - by Mattel" opening at "The Playce" near Potsdamer Platz?
i've heard from someone who works in the mall that the lease negotiations completely broke down in late 2021. the space was built out to their spec but mattel pulled out right before they were supposed to start hiring, so it's just been sitting empty ever since. the branding is still up because the landlord is apparently in some legal dispute about who pays for the removal
honestly i think it's just become one of those weird berlin spaces that everyone notices but no one talks about. i live nearby and walk past it all the time, the lights are sometimes on at night which makes it even creepier. some people in the neighborhood facebook group said it was supposed to be a flagship experience center with like a cafe and merch shop, but the cost of running something that big in that spot probably didn't make sense after the pandemic killed foot traffic. the playce itself already feels half empty most days, so i doubt a mattel playland would've survived anyway.
yeah I remember that space, it was supposed to be this big interactive play area for kids but I think the whole project just quietly died during covid. pretty sure the deal fell through and they never bothered to strip the branding off.
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
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.
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the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated.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
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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