First in an occasional series about unlikely reasons why our city is better than yours.
Since falling in 1989, parts of the wall have been scattered around the world, some as far away as Canberra, much landing around the US, where DC edges out LA for most (and best-preserved) chunks.
DC: 15
8 at the Newseum make up the largest display of unaltered portions outside Germany
+ 4 more in storage
+ 1 at the Ronald Reagan Building
+ 1 owned by Johns Hopkins
+ 1 at the US Diplomacy Center, opening this year
= 15
LA: 11
10 in the collection of the Wende Museum
+ 1 at Loyola Marymount University
= 11
This article originally appeared in the February 2017 issue of Washingtonian.
Rosa joined Washingtonian in 2016 after graduating from Mount Holyoke College. She covers arts and culture for the magazine. She’s written about anti-racism efforts at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, dinosaurs in the revamped fossil hall at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, and the horrors of taking a digital detox. When she can, she performs with her family’s Puerto Rican folkloric music ensemble based in Jersey City. She lives in Adams Morgan.
