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East Side Gallery Review

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East Side Gallery

Address: Mühlenstr., Friedrichshain, Berlin | Map It

Category: Museums/Galleries
Location: Mitte: Unter den Linden to Alexanderplatz

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Fodor's Review:

This 1-km (½-mi) stretch of concrete went from guarded border to open-air gallery within three months. East Berliners breached the wall on November 9, 1989, and between February and June of 1990, 118 artists from around the globe created unique works of art on the longest-remaining section of the Berlin Wall. Much of the paint is now peeling, and many panels have been vandalized with graffiti, despite on-going restoration efforts. One of the best-known works, by Russian artist Dmitri Vrubel, depicts Brezhnev and Honnecker (the former East German leader) kissing, with the caption "My God. Help me survive this deadly love." The stretch along the Spree Canal runs between the Warschauer Strasse S- and U-bahn station and Ostbahnhof. The redbrick Oberbaumbrücke (an 1896 bridge) at Warschauer Strasse makes that end more scenic. Just past the bridge there's also a manmade beach with a bar, restaurant, and club popular with the after work crowd, called Strandgut (www.strandgut-berlin.com).