It was located on Küstriner Platz (since 1972: Franz-Mehring-Platz) in the present-day Friedrichshain quarter, slightly north of Frankfurter Bahnhof (the current Ostbahnhof).

The station concourse was projected by the Prussian building official Adolf Lohse (1807–1867) and upon his death completed by railway architect Hermann Cuno (1831–1896).

[4] On 1 February 1929 the building was converted to a music hall, named Varieté Plaza,[5] then one of the largest in Berlin providing seating for up to 3,000 spectators.

"Aryanized" after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, it was used from 1938 by the state leisure organization Kraft durch Freude.

Several years later, from 1969 to 1974, the large office building of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) newspaper Neues Deutschland was erected on the ground of the former railway terminus.