Former communist east Berlin eclipses west

BERLIN, Sept 1: More than a decade and a half after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a new east-west divide has opened up in the city which was for 40 years the front-line of the Cold War.

As eye-catching new landmarks emerge in the eastern part of the German capital, much of the west -- once a proud model of capitalism -- is left looking drab and dilapidated.

The latest blow to ''City West'', as locals know it, came in May when Berlin opened Europe's biggest train station in an area close to the no man's land where the Berlin Wall once stood.

This has deprived Berlin's Zoo station, the former hub in the west, of long-distance trains which now roll straight through to the gleaming new station, some 4 km away.

''Tourists no longer get out here so restaurants and hotels in the area are suffering,'' said Klaus-Dieter Groehler, deputy mayor of the western district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf ''It's another blow. We need to make sure that improving the east does not lead to the demolition of the west,'' said Groehler, who is campaigning for trains to stop at Zoo.

Four months ago, Zoo had 120,000 commuters rushing through it every day. Now, it is eerily quiet.

Homeless people and drug addicts wander the main building and scraggy pigeons seem to outnumber the few passengers who still pass through to catch local trains.

''It is bad,'' said Horst Flatau, 58, a fruit-and-juice stall owner at Zoo station. ''From one day to the next my business went kaput,'' he said. With sales down 60-70 per cent, he has laid off three workers. In six months, he will have to consider moving.

WIDER MALAISE

It is not just the station that has been hit.

Long stretches of Kurfuerstendamm, west Berlin's most fashionable boulevard when it was occupied by US, British and French forces after World War II, now look neglected with discount stores and ''To Let'' boards appearing alongside upmarket cafes and boutiques.

Since reunification in 1990, west Berlin's modern, concrete opera house, the Deutsche Oper, has fallen on hard times as it struggles against stiff competition from eastern rivals.

Its future is uncertain and at least one ''Ku'damm'' theatre is set to fold. Other theatres and cinemas have already closed.

The decline is in stark contrast to what is happening in the historical heart of the city in the former East, an area that looked like a building site for much of the last 15 years as billions of euros of federal, state and private money poured in. Landmark pieces of architecture have sprung up, including the five-storey glass-and-steel train station and a futuristic cinema and shopping complex in Potsdamer Platz, which in the days of the Wall had been a wasteland.

Tourists are deserting the heart of the west and being drawn eastwards to the revamped Reichstag parliament building with its glass dome designed by British architect Norman Foster, and the newly cleaned Brandenburg Gate.

Young professionals want to live in the trendy districts of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg which boast renovated housing and lively nightlife.

HIGH RENTS

Businesses are also looking eastwards.

''Firms look for property in what was the East because the offices there are new and spacious and also to be close to the government -- lobby groups and public relations companies need that,'' said Jan Huebler of property consultant Jones Lang LaSalle in Berlin.

Firms pay most in Potsdamer Platz where rents are 16 to 20.5 euros (20.5 to 26.3 dollars) a square metre, compared to 11 to 18.5 euros in City West.

Berlin's government, controlled by Social Democrats and the former communist PDS, acknowledges City West needs investment.

A plan to build Europe's largest Ferris wheel in the city, possibly near Zoo station, could help. Private investors are considering a 175 metre-high (574 ft-high) wheel, which a feasibility study shows could attract 500,000 visitors each year.

However, Zoo is competing for the wheel with another location in the east. Even if it does get it, the wheel won't be completed until 2008.

Hella Dunger-Loeper, Berlin's under secretary of state for development, says the notion of a new divide is misguided, arguing that young people no longer view the city through an east-west prism.

She says Berlin has simply redeveloped its historical centre and that happens to be in the eastern part.

''Of course you can't get rid of a 40-year divide overnight but you can gradually create something new,'' she said.

Reuters