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Google "Evicted" the Berlin Wall From Property It Bought
theodp writes Sunday marks the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, which Google commemorates in today's Doodle. "Seeking inspiration for this doodle," notes the Google Doodle Team, "we took a short bike ride from our Mountain View, California headquarters to our local public library to study an actual piece of the Berlin Wall" (the Berlin Wall segments are featured in the Doodle). Interestingly, the post doesn't mention Google's connection to how the two sections of the Berlin Wall wound up at the library. After Google bought the Bayside Business Plaza in 2012, where the 12-foot-tall remnants had been kept for decades by German-born businessman Frank Golzen before his death, it reportedly gave the Golzen family until summer 2013 to get the Berlin Wall off its lawn. "Although the donating family has until next summer to remove the installation from the current location," reads a 2012 City of Mountain View Staff Report, "their preference (and the preference of the new owner of the property) is to remove it sooner." A recommendation to relocate the seven ton concrete slabs to remote Charleston Park, adjacent to the Googleplex, was nixed by the City Council, who voted instead to move the Berlin Wall sections to its current home in front of a downtown public library.
So, Google bought a building and gosh wanted something that didn't come with the purchase removed from the building? HORRORS! Just more evidence of megalomania by the Google twins Larry and Sergey... Same, shame, shame...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
TFA says:
The Golzen family believes the display will live up to Frank’s original goal of making the site available to the public.
DOCTOR JONES!!!!!
Muhuhuhuh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get off my lawn!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I'm not sure what the word "Evicted" is doing in the headline... looks like the city council ordered the move.
"Mr Golzen, please relocate this wall."
Google is breaking down walls on how people connect to the world around them every day. Having this piece of history "on the lawn" seems like it'd be a good mission statement even Google isn't too dense to pass up.
I bet there is something to the story not being told, probably that the owners of said wall wanted Google to pay a yearly fee of some kind to keep it and Google simply said no, and you have until XXXX date to remove it now.
Can somebody explain exactly how this is "news for nerds"? The only remotely nerdy thing is a reference to Google.
We should be discussing about how the new Ultraton 24X Frobnicator 4.0 processor will bring better performance, or how a new flaw has been fixed in the OpenWTH protocol.
If I want everyday news, I go to other site.
And it wasn't evicted by anybody, in addition to the action being by somebody other than google. It sounds like they sold the property, not including the wall segments, and had asked for some time to move them before the buyer (google) took over.
samzenpus must still be beta-testing his or her nerdiness.
Google didn't "evict" the Berlin wall; the Mountain View city council is "divided" over where to put the darned thing. That's the usual dysfunction and bickering of the Mountain View city council. Blame them, not Google.
This is news for nerds, not news for trailer trash that hide in their nuclear bunkers every night because the reds are coming.
Do no evil. Scummy, sure. "it's just busines"
Yep, nothing to see here, just another Slashdot Scroogling in progress.
Microsoft and Apple's pet "editors" are earning their Xmas bonuses by painting Google in negative light with their buzzword loaded flamebait headlines. This new advertorial based Slashdot is both banal and sickening.
WTF is google doing wasting money and resources on stupid shit like this?
I work on Castro street and often take afternoon walks to the park next to the library and see this chunk of wall. I had no idea it was evicted from Google.
Took a short bike ride.
How quaint.
just another DICEy post
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I worked at that office park in the 90s. It was a real trip to have the wall (complete with the painted blue figure wearing bell bottoms) sitting in a little display at one end of the parking lot. They also had a pretty great koi pond and did an Oktoberfest every year. The espresso bar was terrible though.
And SGI was just putting the finishing touches on what is now the Googleplex. Weird.
Okay - there are plenty of segments of Wall still around if people want to see them. Many exactly where they were built. These aren't part of that. They're just collectables. Google has no interest in these colectables and doesn't want to store them for someone else. It's up to the owners to put them somewhere they are wanted
We'll get around to preserving History.. after we've made it.
Yet another piece of Google hate gets posted on /. *Sigh*
Disregarding the accusatory tone of the article, let's look at the facts:
- Private company bought property in history-rich city.
- Said property contained ruins of that city's history.
- New owner didn't want the ruins in the property (because it didn't want the responsibility of taking care of it, or simply because it didn't like it).
- New owner offered to allow said ruins to remain for a period of time until a safe removal could be performed (to preserve said ruin's historical value) bus asked that it be expedited.
I don't see anything wrong. It's not like there are only 3 original pieces of the Berlin wall left, or that it's the first time they've been moved. Hell, there's a piece of it in front of the American consulate in Munich.
In case you're not aware, the "Berlin wall" nowadays is actually few scattered concrete slabs: http://content.answcdn.com/mai...
There are only a few places in Berlin where it actually still looks like a wall, but everywhere else has been removed and replaced with a line marking the original location.
I guess Americans can be excused for not understanding this, but in Europe there's so much history that if you were to treat every single ruin as some sort of sacred cow society would just grind to a halt.
Instead, what we do is to strike a compromise between preserving our legacy and develop towards the future. In that sense, moving a slab of concrete to a new location is a completely acceptable solution.
just another DICEy post
Check the submitter.
TheoDP often posts such material, complete with copious links, but weak on premise.
They seem fond of walls to keep The Other out.
The word "bing" means a heaping pile. I'd like to ask Microsoft "your search engine is a heaping pile of, exactly? "
Google: "Mr. Golzen, tear down this wall!"
This. It was the Mountain View city council effectively evicted them by not wanting them on city land because they were "ugly".
Councilwoman/Mayor Ronit Bryant shows herself as a typical bureaucratic toadie without a wit of self-awareness or conscience and utterly ignorant of history by claiming the wall pieces were "just some ugly concrete". I have NO DOUBT that Bryant thinks the US Constitution is "just a piece of tattered paper" as well.
What a worthless piece of shit she is.