A little known piece of world history that has been on display in a business park in the South Bay for decades is about to get a bigger platform.
The Mountain View city council has approved a plan to install two slabs of the Berlin Wall in front of the public library on Franklin Street.
The two sections of the actual Berlin Wall have been inside a office park in Mountain View since the early 1990s.
They were purchased a few months after the wall fell in 1989 by Los Altos resident ,Frank Renatus Golzen.
Golzen owned the business park on Marine Way just off of U.S. Highway 101, so that is where he decided to place them.
A plaque that sits in front of the display was written by Golzen and reads in part, "The world must not forget that it was America's resolve and its political and economic ideas that made this bloodless revolution and most significant historical event possible."
Golzen came to the United States from Germany in 1931 when we was 16 in 1931. He died in 2009 at the age 92. The sections were donated by his family as part of his estate.
They stand about 10 feet tall and weigh some 14,000 pounds each. They are covered in graffiti. One of the slabs features a heart circling the words "wir lieben dich" which means "we love you." The other is a caricature of figure that appears to be Elvis Presley.
In addition to selecting a library location, the city council allocated $50,000 to cover the costs associated with installing them in front of the library.
There are other portions of the walls on display in other parts of the country, but this is the only on in the Bay Area.
