Shabby red light area of Berlin turns into art hub

Potsdamer strasse,known for prostitutes amp; drug dealers,recovers bohemian allure,draws art lovers

A shabby area of Berlin,best known for its curb-crawling prostitutes and drug dealers,is recovering some of the Bohemian allure of its glory days in the 1920s as low rents and central location lure art galleries.

Art lovers are surprised to discover such a wealth of galleries on and around Potsdamer Strasse,a long artery stretching southwest from the revamped and now-glitzy Potsdamer Platz to the traditional gay stronghold of Schoeneberg.

The galleries,numbering nearly two dozen,are often tucked away in quiet courtyards or hidden in grand 19th century buildings.

This creates the kind of intimacy art lovers appreciate. Visitors feel exclusive as if they were discovering secret places, said Sassa Truelzsch,whose eponymous gallery off Potsdamer Strasse focuses on contemporary art installations.

I was the first one to move here in 2006 and I felt as though I was the only gallery owner in Berlin. Visitors arrived by chance,surprised to find an art gallery in such a context while today we count almost 30 visitors daily, she said.

Also helping to draw in both new galleries and visitors is the areas proximity to such architectural jewels as Mies van der Rohes glass-and-steel New National Gallery and Hans Scharouns tentlike Philharmonic concert hall. The process is typical of Berlins dynamism and capacity for reinvention, said Juerg Judin,a partner of the Nolan Judin gallery on Potsdamer Strasse,which also has a base in New York.

During the Weimar Republic,when Berlin was a byword for Bohemian revelry and sophistication,the arts flourished in a neighbourhood where screen idol Marlene Dietrich had grown up and which was also home at different times to filmmaker Billy Wilder and to British author Christopher Isherwood,whose novel Goodbye to Berlin inspired the musical Cabaret.

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The charm of Potsdamer Strasse is its authenticity and its being a real place, said Dieter Funk,co-owner of the Ave Maria shop selling religious memorabilia and an adjacent restaurant dedicated to Joseph Roth,Austrian-born author of classics such as The Radetzky March,who also lived here in the 1920s.

Berlin represents a unique case in the art world. The city constantly rediscovers its forgotten cheap areas,making them become in turn the main hub of the citys art scene before disappearing again shortly after.