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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.
TFA says:
The Golzen family believes the display will live up to Frank’s original goal of making the site available to the public.
I'm not sure what the word "Evicted" is doing in the headline... looks like the city council ordered the move.
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.
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.