Shopper Overload Closes Berlin Store

The French department store Galeries Lafayette was forced to close its doors Saturday, two days after it opened in Berlin, not from lack of customers, but too many.

Thousands of would-be shoppers jammed the street outside the store for much of the day, trying to get into the six-story, circular glass structure that one Berlin tabloid has dubbed “Spaceship Lafayette.”

Police closed the street, Friedrichstrasse, to cars and used loudspeakers to try to disperse the crowds in front of the locked doors. No injuries were reported.

The store, which opened Thursday, is a major part of plans to restore the center of Berlin, most of which was on the East German side of the Berlin Wall.