When department stores appeared in Berlin at the turn of the century, they became the greatest urban monuments to the brave new world of conspicuous consumption. Most of them, including the largest ones, were owned by Jews. The crown jewel of the main shopping street was Wertheim, at the corner of Leipziger Strasse and Leipziger Platz, begun in 1896 by the architect Alfred Messel and expanded several times in the following years. With its glass-roofed atrium, ten thousand light bulbs, and eighty-three elevators, it drew daily crowds of wealthy shoppers and less wealthy gawkers
