Picture This: Don’t Stroll Around Here

No baby carriages here, please. Unknown activists have taken their anti-baby carriage campaign to the sidewalks in Berlin’s trendy Prenzlauer Berg district, a once bohemian, but fast-gentrifying neighborhood often rumored to have one of the highest birthrates in Europe. Young trendy Germans settled in the former East Berlin neighborhood after the fall of the Wall and are now having children. For years, the neighborhood has long been known as a home to a bohemian crowd — creative or alternative types, gays and lesbians — as well as new families. But sometimes, the two sides clash.

Over the past week, anonymous sprayers have left home-fashioned baby carriage prohibition signs along sidewalks. Divisions among residents and parents made headlines earlier this year when a café in the district set up a “ no children” section. The neighborhood, often referred to by residents as “Pregnancy Hill,” also made headlines recently when a special police patrol unit was created just to deal with the problem of a wave of thefts of expensive €1,000 baby carriages in Prenzlauer Berg.