At a streetcar stop in the western part of Berlin, pedestrians await the approaching Line 6; an advertising column plastered with posters bears the inscription “Streetcar Stop.” In the background at left, the unmistakably war-damaged ruin of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on the Kurfürstendamm is visible, which at this time had not yet been secured as a memorial, yet had already become a defining symbol of Berlin destroyed and rebuilding itself anew. At right, a busy row of shops—identifiable among them a painting gallery and other retailers—lines the street, while Volkswagens and other vehicles of the early Federal Republic enliven traffic. The photograph unites two central motifs of Berlin in 1955: war still omnipresent as a stone memorial and the budding everyday life of the nascent economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) with consumption, mobility, and urban life. The streetcar as mass transit and the advertising columns point to a city reinventing itself amid rubble and new beginnings.