New York City and Miami will have another thing in common: a part of the Berlin Wall.
Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado says the city is about to receive a two-ton piece of the Berlin Wall to become a permanent exhibit across Biscayne Boulevard from the iconic Freedom Tower. Another piece of the wall will be going to New York.
The German government approved the gifts to the two cities to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall on Nov. 9, Regalado told the Miami Herald Editorial Board on Wednesday. It will be installed in a Miami Dade College parking lot right next to the Peter Pan statue.
"It would have a Plexiglas so the wall would not be damaged because its graffiti and all that," he said. "People will be able to come in and see it because it’s an open parking lot. The city will pay for the cost of the foundation, and there will be an exhibit that's paid for by the government of Germany."
That three-week exhibit at the Freedom Tower will include a replica of Checkpoint Charlie, the passageway between East and West Berlin during the time the city was divided.
The government of the former East Germany built the wall in 1961 to prevent defections to the west. Before the wall was taken down in 1989, about 100 East Germans were killed trying to cross the wall to freedom.
