Berlin, 20 years later
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, said Chris Moss in Time Out Berlin. Much has changed since November 1989, when the wall separating East and West Berlin came tumbling down. If Germany’s largest metropolis still seems “divided” today, it’s in a much more benign way. A “rush of capital into the city” has turned West Berlin into a kind of “über-Frankfurt,” crammed with “retail, finance, and aspiration.” East Berlin, on the other hand, has been revitalized by young families and hip little restaurants and bars. Together these elements have turned Prenzlauer Berg, a former working-class tenement zone, into “one of the city’s coolest districts.” To commemorate the anniversary, 100 local artists are repainting the East Side Gallery, a nearly mile-long stretch of the wall that still stands along the Mühlenstrasse. The Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse features a museum, a Documentation Center, and a Chapel of Reconciliation.
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