The other day I walked South down Friedrichstrasse from Unter den Linden. After moving through canyons of scaffolding, past project after incomplete project, I came to the hole that now stands (or rather sinks) where "Check point Charlie" used to be. The future site of an American business center, it was a grey swamp filled with giant drills, caterpiller tractors, and pile drivers. Men in yellow rubberized suits scurried about, splattered head to toe with grey mud, negotiating the operation of large, brightly colored machines. They were laying the foundation, filling the holes, reclaiming history from the ground up.