In Search of the Old Berlin

Tacheles (Kunsthaus Tacheles) is one of the earliest art colonies that were established in East Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Now more a tourist attraction frequented by droves of American or Japanese tourists who had just gotten their passports stamped at Checkpoint Charlie, it has long ago lost its edginess. And yet the news that Tacheles (The NY Times on Tacheles) will be demolished and replaced by a set of apartment buildings makes me sad. It is yet another sign that Berlin is becoming normal and that the city is slowly losing the kind of vibrancy and distinctive Bohemian atmosphere that have made it the most unusual capital in Western Europe.
The Berlin of the 1990's and early 2000's with its small theaters, techno clubs in abandoned factories, groups of percussionists jamming away at 5 AM outside of Warschauer Strasse station, Doener stands where you can get a kebab for less than 2 euros and of course the ubiquitous remnants of the Wall at random places - that is all fading away. It is being replaced by all the hallmarks of a modern city and just as Germany  has become more confident as a unified nation as the years have passed by so has Berlin grown into its role as the capital of unified Germany. So it should be perhaps and yet I think I will always have a certain sense of longing for the city as it was before. I am glad that I will be going back in December in search of what still  remains of that other Berlin.

Tacheles at Night