You have probably seen it before, but I went there today, so here it is again. Located in the former English occupied zone atop a hill in West Berlin, this American listening post was aimed straight at the Russians during the cold war. Nowadays, it's in a pretty sad state, all the windows are smashed, graffiti everywhere, and the copper cutters have just totally fucking wrecked the place. After reading a report on 28DaysLater forum, I thought there might be a guard, so I spent most of my time being as ninja as possible. After hearing some voices, I decided to hide in the top dome, no where to hide if I did get busted, but at least I would have photos of the best bits. I spent about an hour up there playing with the echo, and I wish I could describe the sound in there. Standing in the middle of the dome and talking or whistling or doing anything would result in this cool echo that bounced around 5 or 6 times and faded out. In fact, the whole place had a weird sound, in the photos you can see the highest dome has bits cut out of it, and the wind flowing through there made this unreal sound, like thunder almost, but it just kept going the whole time. On the way down I spotted another guy just walking around, so I figure the place must be kinda chill. Then, from another rooftop, I saw an old couple walking around the base of the domes just talking. At that point I realise theres probably a gaping hole in the fence I missed, or a gate open or something. The areas that would have housed all the equipment are beyond fucked, it's totally impossible to tell what was where, what areas were for, or anything. I guess I would have spent about 5 or 6 hours up there though, it was a very cool place to explore.
Photos:
1) A nice old wooden ceilinged room
2) Inside the top dome, I need wide angle or fish eye, it was hard to capture the siye of this place
3) One of the smaller domes, the city with the TV tower in the background
4) Domes
5) More domes
1 comment:
Just two unimpressive parts of the former equipment have survived, both available twice and both linked to the aim of keeping the secrets of the Field Station: Two shredders connected to huge paper-mâché machines and two incinerators. The attempt of converting the station to a hotel and appartement house lead to massive demoliton, metal thieves and vandals have done the rest. The highest tower lacks half of the alloy-made stilts, that did hold the canvas-like white facade before. It is a very sad sight now, but still an impressive landmark on Berlins highest (rubble) hill.
Post a Comment