In 1963 Osman Kalin decided to leave his hometown of Yozgat in Central Anatolia, to try for a more promising future in Austria for his family and himself. A decision thousands of Turks took at the time, as many countries in Western Europe were prospering under a post WW II economic boom. But there was not enough labor force for the hard work in steel mills, coal mines and at the assembly lines of the automotive industry. Young motivated people from southern Europe and Turkey came and tried their luck, bringing along their families, culture and traditions. Osman Kalin settled in Austria for a short while before moving on to Germany. After having worked in Stuttgart and Mannheim he decided to move to Berlin in 1980, first to Spandau, later to Kreuzberg.

It was the time of the Wall, Berlin was in the tight grasp of the cold war, life in the city ranged from dangerous confrontation to relaxed oasis of blessedness. Mr. Kalin and his family lived close to the Wall, and while strolling along on a sunny day, he again saw that triangular patch of land, directly by the Wall, which would really fit his gardening purposes like back home in Yozgat. It was unused, covered with filth, and, as an additional minor obstacle, it belonged to the eastern part of the city, a small piece of land, a former traffic island, seemingly on West Berlin soil, but technically a contingency belonging to East Germany. During the construction of the Berlin Wall this little traffic island marginalia would have meant a complicated and unpicturesque zig-zagging of an otherwise smooth and long stretch of curve along a former canal. Not minding this small geo-historical hiccup, he started cleaning up the small piece of land, pronging the ground and covering it with mother earth for his micro agricultural project. There was no immediate reaction from East-Berlin authorities. East German border guards watched him from their close-by tower, but didn´t seem to mind this harmless form of occupation of Eastern Bloc territory.

As time passed and the micro-farming returned a prosperous crop, just as in a model socialist production co-op, first peaceful encounters were carefully looming over the Wall. There was a door in the Berlin Wall close-by, an opening needed by the East Germans for Wall maintenance and access to their Extra-Terrestrial piece of land. First hellos and hand-waves, leading to a formal written special permission by the Communist Party´s Central Committee for this peaceful land-use, culminating in friendly exchanges of christmas cookies and wine, in turn tolerated by the Americans who had the watch over this part of West-Berlin. Mr. Kalin as a pioneer in deescalation along the inner German border before Reagan and Gorbachev even grasped the concept.

After the Wall came down in 1989 the small patch of land became part of the new Mitte borough. As there were new ideas evolving by the minute over how to plan and create a new Berlin, it became clear that this newly revived traffic island would sooner or later be remodeled by enthusiastic city-planners. In the meantime, ignored by historical frenzy, Mr. Kalin had started building a small shack, which gradually grew in size and height. In order to save this new unique piece of Berlin apparition, the priest of the neighboring St. Thomas church started using his influence with the Green-Party city council of Kreuzberg to propose a cunning plan to the council of the Mitte borough: transfer the small patch of land to Kreuzberg and we´ll deal with the gardening nuisance. Mitte agreed and in 1994 the traffic island was formally incorporated into Kreuzberg. Immediately Mr. Kalin was handed a special permission, allowing him to use the patch of land for an indefinable time. Indefinable time is interpreted as long as Kreuzberg-Berliners will keep voting for a green/left city council (loooong time).

Today the treehouse is a component of the Berlin tourist trail, just as the East Side Gallery or the Brandenburg Gate. Mr. Kalin is succeeded by his son Mehmet who takes care of the treehouse and the garden and works as a contact for tourist groups who want to have a closer look. Officially the house does not have electricity nor running water, just as the unofficial adress carries a "0" as a house number. There have been two arson attacks in 1991 and 2003, but neither seemed to be politically motivated, they were rather a spontaneous "action" by chaos kids. The treehouse has become just another normal Kreuzberg feature, the family using and profiting from the fertile green island. Fruit-trees and bushes have grown and tourists snap their pictures of another local attraction.

Mehmet Kalin, second generation caretaker.

One of the first graffitis (not the sparrow) was done by a young

artist who left the iron template as a window grate.

Mehmet Kalin with his father Osman Kalin who turned 90 just recently.

Guerilla gardening in the middle of Berlin.

This perspective shows the triangular shaped traffic island. St. Thomas in the background.

The Wall stood along the curved line of cars to the right. A historical picture taken from

the St. Thomas tower shows how close the Berlin Wall came to the garden.