Mehringdamm

The Mehringdamm is a street in southern Kreuzberg, Berlin. In the north it starts at Mehringbrücke and ends - with its southern most houses already belonging to Tempelhof locality - on Platz der Luftbrücke. It is the historical southbound Berlin-Halle highway, now forming the federal route 96. The main junction of Mehringdamm is with the 19th-century ring road around Berlin's inner city, named Yorckstraße west, and Gneisenaustraße east of Mehringdamm.

The highway from Cölln (since 1710 a part of Berlin) to Halle upon Saale and Leipzig traverses the quarter of Tempelhofer Vorstadt (Bezirksregion II {borough region II} of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) from north to south on a length of 3 km (1.9 mi). Before it was paved, horses and coaches going up the highway to the level of the Teltow Plateau, rising between Bergmannstraße and Fidicinstraße by 14 m (46 ft), rutted the road into many parallel lanes. Since the early 18th century, the Tempelhof Field on the Teltow Plateau served as a military exercising and parade ground with annual military reviews. The Berlin-Halle highway was extended to allow cavalrymen and infantrymen from several barracks in Berlin easy access to the Tempelhof Field (after 1923 Tempelhof Airport). The western half of the actual street remained an unpaved sand strip starting at the former Dragoons' Barracks on Mehringdamm 20–25 (today's Tax Office) until up to the Tempelhof Field.

With the gradual suburbanisation of the area south of the Belle-Alliance-Platz (Rondeel till 1815) outside of the Halle Gate denser construction started on today's Mehringdamm which was thus officially given a name on 20 April 1837, namely Tempelhofer Straße, after its next southern destination the then village of Tempelhof. On the same occasion the junction of Tempelhofer Straße with other streets radially connecting to the Halle Gate was renamed Platz vor dem Hallischen Tor, and again Blücherplatz on 7 April 1884.

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