They each stood by, bundled in scarves and coats. Slight murmurs wafted through the air. But as the 80-foot barricade came tumbling down, cheers erupted.
Berlin it wasn’t. But shortly after midnight this morning, Los Angeles paid tribute to the historic collapse of the wall that kept a city divided for 28 years.
About 700 people gathered on Wilshire Boulevard near Ogden Drive to take part in the Wende Museum’s “A Wall Across Wilshire” event, a symbolic re-creation of the Berlin Wall that once separated East and West Berlin. It was part of the museum’s Wall Project, which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the wall.
“The division physically and symbolically marked by concrete barriers divided the city through its very heart,” said Justinian Jampol, the Culver City museum’s executive director and founder, as he addressed the crowd. ”But the Berlin Wall is not just a curious icon of a man-made conflict; it had real and enormous consequences …. it led to the loss of dreams and to the loss of lives.”
