Dear Gazette,
Your recent ranking of Berlin’s Saddest U-Bahn Platforms placed Bismarkstraße at #8. I have spent seventeen years commuting through Bismarkstraße (including the never-ending renovations which are “almost completely finished”). I have tripped seven times. I have watched perfectly good graffiti removed and replaced with nothing. And once you are done facing the usual existential mess, you look up to find the Iron Chancellor’s distorted face staring at you while you wait for the train to come screaming around the corner.
The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG)‘s hope to encourage reflection about the station’s controversial namesake has only resulting in my nausea as Otto von Bismark’s ovoid eyes stare me down. The ghost has even begun colonizing my dreams.
~ Name Withheld, Charlottenburg