MediaSpree protest June 5, 2010

During the last day of our study trip to Berlin, Spencer and I found ourselves at the front end of a street protest against MediaSpree.  Well, the front end of 1/2 of the protest, as it turned out that two groups merged together from both sides of the Spree.  MediaSpree involves the commercial development of property along the river in the Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg districts of former east Berlin that is dislocating neighborhoods, squats, local businesses, etc. with big multinational shopping malls, office buildings, MTV, Universal Studios, and the controversial o2 arena.  People are calling it a new wall to replace the Berlin Wall that ran through the region.  Unfortunately, Stickerkitty forgot to bring her camera that day (crap), but there are a bunch of photos on Flickr if you search MediaSpree, including good sets from PM_C and Mikael Zellman.  Berlin was dotted with stickers, fliers, and a huge mural announcing the protest.

Despite what was supposed to be a peaceful protest there was a strong police presence, which is something I certainly wasn’t used to.  Kitty didn’t like the scary dogs that were there like this one.

It was fitting that our trip ended in front of this mural, which is on the cover of the book I gave to the students before we left, Street Art in Berlin 3.0 by Kai Jacob.