‘Turm’ means tower: the street is named after church towers.
Turmstraße, Moabit’s main shopping street, was laid out on the line of an old army road. It is named after two church towers that could be seen from it at the time. It is often said that the street was a sight line between the Sophienkirche in Mitte and the Nikolaikirche in Spandau, but newer findings say this is not true. After the Second World War it was briefly Ernst-Thälmann-Straße, until the end of 1945.