I’ve only been to Berlin once, back in 2011, when I spent a few days their with my wife, son and rather small grandaughter, in a rather grand Airbnb flat on Rosa Luxemburg Str. Of course, being then a relatively new grandfather, many of the pictures were simply family pictures which I don’t make public, but there were quite a few others.
But back then I had this idea that ‘My London Diary’ was just for pictures of London, something I now have a rather more relaxed idea about and so I don’t think I’ve ever put any of the pictures I took during our stay on-line. Except for some of the bears, which appeared in a post Do Bears? in this Re>PHOTO blog inb 2011.
I was reminded of this visit in December, when people from the Berlin community centre and pub Syndikat protested with London Renters Union outside the London offices of their landlord, Global Real Estate Investors Limited, near Cavendish Square.
It’s probably a company you’ve never heard of – and certainly I hadn’t. Owned by the ultra-secretive Pears brothers, Mark, Trevor and David, who through a whole lot of front companies apparently own 6,200 properties in Berlin as well as around £6 bn worth of property in London and south-east England, including 3-4,000 properties in London, many in Notting Hill and thousands elsewhere. The three brothers are thought to be worth around £2.1bn, not bad for a company begun by their grandfather in 1952 when he ran 3 greengrocers in North London.
They also run the Pears Foundation “an independent, British family foundation, rooted in Jewish values, that takes £15-20 million of private money every year and invests it in good causes.”
Syndikat have been running their anarcho-pub in Neukölln in Berlin for 33 years, but were recently given notice to quit for no real reason. Their lease ran out on 31st December 2018, but they were still open at the end of January 2019, and waiting for a court date for the eviction order. There have been a number of protests in Berlin, including at their landlord’s office there and the British Embassy (also thought to be owned by Pears) with another planned for the start of March.
This was a peaceful protest, standing in front of the offices and handing out flyers, as well as talking with those entering and leaving the offices, including one of the executive officers who promised to look into their case, though nothing appears to have come from this.
More pictures at Berlin Syndikat protest at London landlords.
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My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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