C&EN in Europe

Abstract

I FIRST VISITED BERLIN in the summer of 1991 to cover an international AIDS conference for C&EN. The Berlin Wall had fallen only a year-and-a-half earlier, and the city, especially the former eastern sector, was in a frenzy of development. I visited Berlin for the second time just a few weeks ago on my way to Milan to attend CPhI. What a difference 18 years makes! Signs of the division of the city have been almost obliterated. The city’s center of gravity seems to have shifted back to Unter den Linden, the grand boulevard that was the traditional heart of Berlin until it was walled off as part of East Berlin. Running off of Unter den Linden, Wilhelmstrasse and Friedrichstrasse are chic shopping avenues that rival the Kurfurstendamm in the western part of the city. The area around the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, has been transformed since Berlin became the reunified nation’s capital. To the ...