Since Jan 01, 2000: District Pankow
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From Pankow, you reach the city centre (direction Prenzlauer Berg / Mitte) by city-train (ring train S41/42, S8), by tram and of late by underground (U2).
Further information:: TIC Berlin Prenzlauer Berg
Towards the end of the 19th century, when Berlin grew a metropolis, prosperous citizens settled around the small village of Pankow and castle Niederschönhausen with its ample park. The bourgeois character and the Wilhelminian lifestyle have been preserved in the dignified surroundings of the Amalienpark. Since the 1950s the name of East Berlin's mansion quarter is closely connected to prominent politicians of the former GDR like Otto Grotewohl and Walter Ulbricht who lived here next door to famous artists, writers and scientists; Carl von Ossietzky, Hanns Eisler, Arnold Zweig, Stephan Hermlin and Christa Wolf did resp. do reside in Pankow. Many still remember Udo Lindenberg's popular ironic song "Sonderzug nach Pankow" about the wish of the singer to visit Erich Honecker in the 1980s.
Castle Schönhausen, where Queen Christine (wife of Friedrich the Great) was literally bored to death and where the Nazis deposited "decadent art" rose to the office of GDR-president Pieck and to a national guest house which accommodated Fidel Castro and Michail Gorbachov. The GDR's end also was initiated here with the "Round Table" discussions and the negotiations for the reunification treaties. For one hundred years, the Erich Weinert Colony is used by artists as room for living and working.