Berlin's rat baths: inside the ruined swimming palace Blub – in pictures

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/29/berlins-ruined-swimming-palace-blub-in-pictures

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No expense was spared in making Blub, a huge swimming pool complex, one of West Berlin’s most popular public amenities. But the latest investment will ensure it’s a strictly private affair. Abandoned to rats and graffiti since its closure in 2005, the atmospherically derelict Blub is to be torn down this year for 450 luxury apartments by the imaginatively named H-Group, a consortium of Munich-based investors. The new buildings will apparently feature “modern, inviting architecture for a wide variety of housing and living models” and spacious green areas to ensure “unique and premium open spaces for the future residents”.

It all means that Blub, short for Berliner Luft und Badeparadies (Berlin Air and Bathing Paradise), will have come full circle since it first opened in Britz beside the Teltow canal in February of 1985. There were hot whirlpools, geysers, fountains, waterslides – including a 120m “Great Slide” – a whitewater canal, a sauna garden, a kids water playground and a gym. And in case things weren’t crazy enough already, a “Crazy River” was added later.

Who knows if the Berlin Wall had been blocking Neuköllners’ natural migration to other pools, like a dam preventing salmon returning to home rivers, but whatever the explanation, visitor numbers dropped in the years after German reunification. That was when the rats saw their chance.

At 3.40pm on Monday 9 December 2002, Blub was closed down with immediate effect. Rat shit in the baby pool, rats swimming in the outdoor pools, and birds defecating in the canteen were reason enough for the local health authorities to step in, according to Der Tagesspiegel.

Blub boss Harald Frisch took steps to get rid of the uninvited visitors. He set traps and hired a pest control company. But there had been problems before. The city council had already closed parts of Blub in 2000. Hygiene was patchy in the sauna, whirlpools and kitchen; the changing rooms were dingy. Gangs of young people had already staked their claims, and were putting off other visitors (though not the rats). A security guard was hired to deal with the kids.

None of this was good for business. Visitor numbers had already halved by 2002, but the closure order was the fatal blow. Blub did open again a week later with a new fence to keep out the rats, but the real fence was the bad publicity.

The following year, only 220,000 visitors came. Blub declared bankruptcy. Frisch spent €4m renovating the sauna into an Andalucia-inspired wonderland with a gemstone steam bath, herbal springs, volcanic sauna and larger garden. But it was too late. Blub plodded on another two years before finally succumbing to the inevitable and closing down for good. Nobody wants to swim in rat shit.

The sauna and fitness areas remained open, but Frisch never found the investment money necessary to overhaul the complex. Property developer Tobias Willmeroth bought the land from the state-owned Liegenschaftsfonds Berlin, with plans to turn it into a holiday resort. Those plans came to nothing as well. Now it seems any lingering hope of a last splash for Blub have ended. Construction on “Greenpark” is due to be completed by 2020.