Beautiful 1980s portraits capture the vibrant residents of a single East Berlin street

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The rock group Phonolog.

Image: Harf Zimmermann

In 1981, Harf Zimmermann moved into a fifth-floor walkup apartment on Hufelandstrasse, a cobblestone street in East Berlin.

The neighborhood was an anomaly in the increasingly drab Soviet-administered city. Buildings boasted proud facades and balconies, linden trees lined the broad sidewalks, and an unusual number of privately-owned shops remained in business.

But in 1985 the crumbling balconies were stripped away, and in 1987, with the soil poisoned by leaking gas lines, the last of the linden trees were felled.

Feeling like the “final witness” to something that would soon be gone forever, Zimmermann went out onto the street with a large-format view camera. Read more…

More about History, Retronaut, Berlin Wall, East Berlin, and East Germany

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