Did you know that there’s a fragment of the Berlin Wall in New York?
In the Battery Park area, you can find a section of the famous wall covered with graffiti by Thierry Noir — the first street artist to begin painting on the Berlin Wall.
This nearly 4-meter (12-foot) segment was gifted to the city by the German Consulate as a sign of friendship and a symbol of freedom in November 2004, to mark the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (which happened in 1989).
The Berlin Wall divided Germany for 28 years during the Cold War. Its total length was 155 km (96 miles). Construction began on August 13, 1961, during a period of intense confrontation between the USSR and the Western bloc. The wall was built by the communist leadership of East Germany to stop the mass exodus of residents to West Germany.
Another fragment is located in the sculpture garden on the grounds of the United Nations headquarters. Germany gifted this fragment to the UN in 2002. During the ceremony, then–Secretary-General Kofi Annan said:
“The Berlin Wall was an affront to the human spirit. It not only marked the division of Germany and Europe, but expressed in the most frightening way the human tendency to erect walls and borders and then stare at each other across them with hearts filled with hatred and minds full of fear and distrust — remaining deaf to the idea that there could be a better way.”
Today, the fragment is installed exactly as it once stood in Germany: east faces east, west faces west. It features graffiti by the German-Iranian artist Kani Alavi.
P.S. There used to be two more segments of the Berlin Wall in New York, but they quietly and almost unnoticed disappeared from public access. In total, I managed to google about 13 public displays of the wall across the US.
📍 Berlin Wall «Homage to Liberty» at Battery Park / 393 S End Ave, New York, NY 10280
📍 Berlin Wall «Trophy of Civil Rights» at United Nations HQ / 405 E 45th St, New York, NY 10017
