And yet another West-Berliner institution bites the dust
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away…This was the place where you used to come if you wanted to read the latest New York Times or get smart about becoming a foreign exchange student or find out how to enroll at an American university or, well, protest against the Vietnam War and throw rocks and stuff. And you can still do that if you would like, I suppose, although I wouldn’t expect much of a turnout at your anti-war rally these days. Your Vietnam one, I mean. But you better hurry if you’re planning to do so (and bring your own teargas, okay?), because the good ole Amerika Haus, that forlorn, out-of-place, silly, ugly-as-sin, harmless and yet wonderful little “small town” library right next door to Bahnhof Zoo is closing down.
The Amerika Haus opened way back in chilly as in Cold War 1957 to “compensate for the information deficit” suffered by the citizens of Berlin after years of National Socialism and political separation. Its roots go back further to 1946, however, when US soldiers organized a small book exchange on nearby Kleiststraße. This morphed into a library and then became an Informationszentrum (information center) and was then christened Amerika Haus in 1947. After a stint on Nollendorfplatz, it moved to its present location. And a bit later, after the contruction of the Berlin Wall, the new building constructed here became one of the most visible US addresses in West-Berlin and therefore, a bit later still, also a popular venue for violent demonstration.
Nobody seems to know exactly why it’s closing right at this moment. It’ll be another year at least before the new American Embassy on Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate will be finished. But if you stop and think about it, it should have packed up and left town long ago. The place is just way too West-Berlin. And it shut down way back in 1989. Are we clutching to the past again, people?
Okay, okay. Sure, "City-West" almost sounds like West-Berlin. But anyway you try and pronounce it, it just isn’t quite the same thing.