Osthafen between Oberbaum Bridge and Elsen Bridge
Friedrichshain's Spree riverbank boasts one of the liveliest and most beautiful river access points in the city, the Osthafen. Narrow but one to two kilometers long, the harbor facilities are tucked between the river and the six-lane highway that escorts the Spree from the Jannowitz Bridge to the Stralau Peninsula. While there are still gatehouses, visitors have unobstructed access to the railway tracks, warehouses, storage sheds, loading ramps, and the large overhead cranes that load barges with scrap or building materials. One of the two brick administrative buildings is the old workers' dining hall, now a bright, friendly harbor canteen, open weekdays from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. and featuring a small summer garden facing the Spree. The river is more stately in this section and, with the confluences of the Flutgraben and Landwehrkanal on the opposite, Kreuzberg-Treptower bank, also more lively than elsewhere. Before reunification, the harbor was an important transshipment point for the major construction sites on the outskirts of East Berlin. Today, the hustle and bustle has dwindled to a tranquil level and merges with the atmosphere of the river to create a melancholic swan song for the industrial world of work.
The end of the industrial idyll between the Oberbaum Bridge and the Elsen Bridge, predicted for 2007, has long since arrived. The music and fashion industries have taken over the old buildings, transforming them into studios, showrooms, lofts, and bistros. The symmetry of the old complex—two mid-sized administrative buildings and the flat, elongated warehouses to the left and right—has been lost to new blocks and glass extensions. But anyone who laments the old harbor canteen described above can take comfort in the fact that the Universal music company moved into the former egg cold storage facility in 2002. Its canteen is open to the public and, in terms of interior design and its magnificent location above the Spree, is one of the most beautiful canteen locations in the city.