The other day, I received the following text from a friend of mine:
"Tempelhof Park is opening this weekend and I'm taking you with me to see it!" Oh, and there was a ": )" at the end. Who can say no to a ": )"?
"Okay!" I replied, oblivious to what the hoopla was about but as always, game to find out.
All I knew was that Tempelhof was one of Berlin's three airports, recently defunct. Built in the late 30s, it's a concrete reminder of creepier times. The airport was apparently used regularly up until just a few years ago as Tegel and Schönefeld became the hubs for international flights. The plan, I've heard, is to expand Schönefeld in the coming years and close Tegel, too. Kind of makes me sad. Compared to the monstrosities I tend to pass through, Tegel is a cute as a button airport, easy to navigate and relatively stress free. But I digress.
As of Saturday, what used to be an airfield has now been transformed into a park. Yesterday, a friend and I wandered around, dodging roller bladers and cyclists as they sped down the runway's painted arrows. It felt quite strange to watch people eat wurst and fly their kites in the midst of an overgrown airfield. Even stranger? Sitting in a "park" that does not contain a single tree. (I now know where to go if I want to bake my skin off this summer). It was sort of like having a picnic in the middle of the Wyoming plains. That is, if the western plains now include a long strip of concrete and a giant vacant terminal that-a-way.
Oh, and in good Berlin fashion, some demonstrators showed up Saturday, protesting the lack of public participation in the planning of the park along with the overall gentrification of the area which is supposedly forcing the socially disadvantaged out. Protests two weekends in a row? I kind of love that about this town.
As always, I did not think to bring my camera so I shall now rely on Spiegel to provide you with a bit of viewing pleasure.
Til the next ruckus...
1 comment:
Cute as a button? Who are you? ;)
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