By this time you should be close to the Hackesche Höfe.Today, the Hackesche Höfe (courtyards) are filled with restaurants, bars, a museum, theaters, art galleries, and trendy shops. The first courtyard—and there are eight of them!--is a wonder of art nouveau and is a far cry from the grim and abandoned facades that were here during the neglected communist years (1945-1989). The building began life in the 1700s but took its current shape in the 1850s. Here is a grand example of late 19th century mixed-use urban life.Why don’t you walk around a bit and we’ll share with you a story or two.During the great urbanization and industrialization of Central Europe’s great cities, Budapest, Vienna, and Berlin all featured complexes like this: light industrial manufacturing was often concentrated in the first of the courtyards and, in courtyards beyond, apartments and offices filled high-ceilinged rooms that usually sported enormous windows to coax in as much of the northern European light as they could get.Since we are in the Hackesche Höfe, let’s have Rosa Rosenstein tell you about how she met her husband Mishi. As you’ll remember, Rosa already told us about their wedding in 1928, and of Mishi’s death in forced labor.But let’s go back to 1927. It’s during the Weimar years in Berlin—and take a look up at those large factory windows in these courtyards. That’s where men and women sat there sewing, typing, and writing during the day.“I was working for my father doing office work and I liked to sit by those large windows. There was a menswear business across the way and this young, good-looking man sat at his sewing machine. We would often smile at each other. I didn’t know who he was and he didn’t know who I was. One day this messenger came by and he brought me a box, a kilo of sweets: ‘This is from the young man over there’ I took it, of course, and waved a big thank you. Now a couple of hours later, I went through Hackescher Höfe to this large bookshop on Rosenthaler Straße I liked. I was browsing through some books, I turned around and that handsome young man was standing there. He asked if he might accompany me—he was heading the same way. I said, How do you know which way I’m going? He just smiled, I said okay. And that was how it started between us.”