The first photo above is looking down on Alexanderplatz from the TV tower; this is the place where 500,000 protested in early November 1989 before the wall came down, pressuring the government. The building on the left (smaller one) is now a Kaufhof, a major department store, and was the "central store" for the old GDR. I went there when I visited East Berlin in the summer of 1989, just a couple months before the wall came down. The visit was memorable, as it took me three hours to cross at Friedrichsstrasse, waiting in line and feeling like I really did make a long voyage. The quiet of East Berlin seemed a world away from the hustle and bustle of the West. I had to walk Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg gate to see over to the other side (in the West I could see people on a platform I had stood on the day before, as they looked in to the East) to really convince myself I was in the same city! At that time I could FEEL what the division of Berlin meant; all the intellectual understanding of the Cold War and politics was fine, but you had to be there to really understand just how absurd and tragic the situation was. I visited the central store and was amazed by how little they had to offer -- and it had better goods than most East German stores since it was the one westerners would come visit. At that time -- August 3, 1989 (these pictures are from 2001), the division seemed permanent, but just a week later the events that would lead to the collapse of East Germany started. In retrospect I was part of the final days of an era, and I'm glad I took the time to go there, it really made the fall of wall that much more meaningful to me. I still get tears in my ways watching video of November 9, 1989, and its a testament to what can happen when the people force politicians to be held accountable. The second photo looks out at old East Berlin from the edge of Alexanderplatz; the old Forum hotelwas the main hotel in old East Berlin. I had a beer and a cafeteria lunch at a place on the edge of the building next to it in 1989; of course, a lot has changed since then!