Moka Efti returns

With the recent success of the TV series Babylon Berlin, the famous Moka Efti café has been in the news again, nearly 90 years after its opening in 1929. The Guardian recently reported on the real-life inspiration for the “sinful superclub” of the same name that plays a central role in Babylon Berlin: “The decor inside the original venue, however, was even wilder than the imagination of the TV producers has allowed. An elevator took visitors from street level to the first floor – a technical invention so new and laden with the promise of social mobility at the time that many Berliners visited Moka Efti merely for the ride”  – which echoes Siegfried Kracauer’s (overly cynical) report on the opening of the café: “A moving staircase, whose functions presum­ably include symbolizing the easy ascent to the higher social strata, conveys ever new crowds from the street directly to the Orient, denoted by columns and harem gratings.” (The Salaried Masses, p. 93)

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