For a few minutes last Sunday, it appeared as if Tempelhof Airport had been reopened for flights. The silhouette of a jet plane soared through the sky, acrobatically weaving between and flocks of birds and Drachenflieger*.
Tempelhof Airfield is the decommissioned city airport and site of the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949. These days Tempelhof is more Seurat painting than former airstrip, having been turned into a massive park grounds following years of civic discussion and city planning. While studying in Berlin in 2008, my brother James wrote his final paper about the future of the airport, which officially closed in Halloween of that year.
Meanwhile, the plane had arched one last time around the structure itself before crashing softly into the grass, just meters away from the couple operating it by remote control.
Still, a glorious flight.
*the German word for kite, literally translating to “dragon-fliers.”
(music plucked from some strumming in my flat on Saturday night after seeing Jenn off to her flight to London at Schoenfeld)
lucas wetzel 