Checkpoint Charlie
— the crossing the century turned on.
Not only on a wall.
“The third Allied crossing point through the Berlin Wall, named Charlie for the NATO C after Alpha and Bravo on the inner-German border. Active from August 1961 until the Wall came down in November 1989, the checkpoint sat at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße in the American sector. A replica guardhouse stands on the spot today, with the Mauermuseum a few steps north. — from the studio
Checkpoint Charlie, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Checkpoint Charlie stood at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße, in what is now Berlin's Mitte district. From 1961 to 1990 it was the only crossing between the American sector of West Berlin and Soviet-controlled East Berlin reserved for foreigners and Allied personnel. The name comes from the NATO phonetic alphabet, third after Alpha at Helmstedt and Bravo at Dreilinden on the inner-German border. The site today carries a replica guardhouse on the median of Friedrichstraße; the original guardhouse is preserved at the Allied Museum in the Dahlem district.
In October 1961, American and Soviet tanks faced each other across the checkpoint for sixteen hours, the closest the Cold War came to a direct armoured exchange in Europe. Through the next twenty-eight years the crossing handled diplomatic traffic, spy exchanges including Francis Gary Powers in 1962, and escape attempts both successful and fatal. Peter Fechter died in the death strip a block east in August 1962. The Wall opened on 9 November 1989; the checkpoint closed in June 1990 in a ceremony attended by foreign ministers from both sides.
The site is open to walk through at any hour and is free. The replica guardhouse, sandbags, and Cyrillic and English signage stand on the median of Friedrichstraße. Reenactors in period uniform pose for photographs for a small fee, an arrangement Berlin's senate has periodically tried to regulate. The Mauermuseum, also called Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, was founded in 1962 by Rainer Hildebrandt and sits a half-block north; it documents the escape stories in detail. Stations Kochstraße and Stadtmitte on the U6 are the nearest U-Bahn stops.