Abrahm Lustgarten

Abrahm Simon Lustgarten is an environmental reporter for ProPublica.

He graduated from Cornell University with a BS in anthropology, and from Columbia University with a MA in journalism. He was a staff writer for Fortune magazine, and adjunct professor at the University of Oregon. His work has appeared in The New York Times,The Washington Post,Mother Jones,Esquire,Salon,Scientific American.

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Lustgarten

The Lustgarten ("Pleasure Garden") is a park on Museum Island in central Berlin, near the site of the former Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace) of which it was originally a part. At various times in its history, the park has been used as a parade ground, a place for mass rallies and a public park.

The area of the Lustgarten was originally developed in the 16th century as a kitchen garden attached to the Palace, then the residence of the Elector of Brandenburg, the core of the later Kingdom of Prussia. After the devastation of Germany during the Thirty Years War, Berlin was redeveloped by Friedrich Wilhelm (the Great Elector) and his Dutch wife, Luise Henriette of Nassau. It was Luise, with the assistance of a military engineer Johann Mauritz and a landscape gardener Michael Hanff, who, in 1646, converted the former kitchen garden into a formal garden, with fountains and geometric paths, and gave it its current name.

In 1713, Friedrich Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and set about converting Prussia into a militarised state. He ripped out his grandmother's garden and converted the Lustgarten into a sand-covered parade ground: Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate and Leipziger Platz were also laid out as parade grounds at this time. In 1790, Friedrich Wilhelm II allowed the Lustgarten to be turned back into a park, but during French occupation of Berlin in 1806 Napoleon again drilled troops there.