The
German word for the little figures in
pedestrian crossing lights.
In
Berlin, the Ampelmännchen come in two flavors: the
old-skool men who wear brimmed hats in the East, and the boring modern figures in the West. There was a controversy in the city not long ago, after
German reunification, over whether to
homogenize the Ampelmännchen, using only the Western figures. Thankfully, the nifty East-side figures survived and now can be found all over former
East Berlin.