For more than a decade I used to live just a block away from this building and I never bothered to take a picture. And at a recent visit to the old country I just had enough time to take one picture while driving by in a car.
Babelsberg was an independent town until 1937. It was one of the poorest places in the Area and King Frederic the Great, who's castle was just a couple of miles away, once said,
"I don't mind loosing everything I own. For as long as I have the people of Babelsberg, they will steel everything back in no time."
So, this giant, neo-gothic building must have looked really odd in this rather proletarian neighborhood when it was built here in 1899 by an architect named Otto Kerwin.
It served as Babelsberg's city hall until 1937 when the town became a part of Potsdam. After serving as a library, a World War II hospital and a bank, it became a popular community center in the 1960s.