Chinatown

My Toronto

Back to Berlin?

Scorned by almost everyone, Berlin's notorious Wall became the perfect canvas for West German graffiti artists

My affinity for Berlin began in the summer of 1981, when I first read Christopher Isherwood’s “Goodbye to Berlin.” The story, written in 1939, inspired the classic 1972 film “Cabaret,” starring Liza Minnelli and Michael York. I decided to see Berlin for myself, a fabled city made all the more famous by The Wall during the Cold War. I spent most of January 1986 in Berlin. By sheer coincidence, Isherwood died on Jan. 6 that year. He had lived in California since the Second World War, but still had fans in Germany. One day, by another bizarre coincidence, I stumbled across the apartment block where he resided in the 1930s: there was a brass plaque inscribed with his name by the front door, and someone had placed a wreath and candles on the sidewalk beneath it. But I didn’t realize that he had died until I got back to the flat that evening and heard the news on the BBC.

Another highlight was taking the Berlin U-Bahn (subway) to the Friedrichstrasse Station, where Cold War tensions were not only highly visible but also deeply palpable. In the divided city, subway trains crossed into East German territory while travelling from one part of West Berlin to another. I'll never forget the so-called "Geisterbahnhöfe" (ghost stations) where no trains ever stopped. Illuminated by flickering fluorescent lights, the stations were off limits to everyone except East German custodians, who kept them meticulously clean, and armed guards.The billboards looked like they hadn't been changed since 1961, the year the Wall went up. Passengers could change trains only at Friedrichstrasse, a border checkpoint where officials went to great lengths to prevent East Berliners from escaping. At random intervals, German shepherd dogs would be released onto the tracks, allowed to run beneath the entire length of idling trains to sniff out desperate passengers clinging to the undercarriage.

I haven't been back to Berlin for 25 years, and needless to say the city has changed a lot since then. A return visit is long overdue.