Fall of the Wall + 20: Promises, Promises

The web is awash in images today commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This shot, from November 11, 1989, shows East German border guards looking through an opening from a section pulled down by demonstrators near the Brandenburg Gate. As it resonates today, the picture delivers a huge nostalgia payoff with its heavy dose of Western cool, even if — in the midst of our world-wide recession, and the painful/no-going for all immigrants, political and otherwise — it’s not exactly the promised land.

(Photo: Lionel Cironneau/AP)