Fourteen Years on the Revaler Straße

The Rosi’s on Revaler Straße in Friedrichshain was, for several summers, something close to a second home. I can’t claim to remember all of it clearly—the nights there tended to blur pleasantly—but the atmosphere was unlike most other places in Berlin: familiar without being precious, the outdoor area with its wooden benches and string lights the kind of place you could sit at 2am feeling perfectly comfortable next to strangers. It was one of those clubs that didn’t try to be anything other than what it was.

Now it’s closing. End of 2018, after fourteen years. The venue sits just a few hundred meters from the RAW-Gelände and drew a crowd that ran from drum and bass heads to techno, indie, and rock—two floors, no pretension, the obligatory Berlin outdoor area that actually delivered. The building has been sold to a private estate and the plan is offices with commercial ground-floor space and an underground parking garage. Construction timeline uncertain, but the parties stop in December.

It follows the Bassy and the Kulturstätte Jonny Knüppel into the same category of things Berlin used to have. The city has been performing this particular kind of loss for years—a club runs its course, the neighborhood gets expensive, the building gets sold to someone who has decided parking is more valuable than a dance floor. The formula is familiar enough to feel almost routine, except it never quite is when it’s a place you actually went to and can still half-remember.

There are a few months left. Worth going.