Berlin Voters Reject Plan to Build Homes on Cold War Airfield

Berlin voters rejected the government’s plan to build homes, schools and a library on Tempelhofer Feld, the former airfield where Allied bombers once delivered food to a city besieged by the Soviet Army.

The development on the edges of Tempelhof, now a recreational lawn almost the size of New York’s Central Park, was voted down by the majority of voters in the referendum and more than a quarter of all Berliners eligible to vote, Berlin’s Election Commission said on its website today. By 9:38 p.m. about 83 percent of the votes had been counted. A final result is expected by the end of the day.