Berlin Diary: Contrary to what you may have heard, West Berlin still exists, if only in the heads of the locals who proudly tell you that they've never been on the other side of the Brandenburg Gate.
But the decline of the western city around the Kurfürstendamm (Ku'damm) shopping mile, trapped in the 1980s since unification, now appears to be gathering steam.
The first indication was the closure, one after another, of the cinemas along the Ku'damm. The beautiful art deco film palaces that still advertised new releases with hand-painted film posters couldn't compete with the steel-and-glass multiplexes which had opened on the former no-man's land of Potsdamer Platz.
Berlin audiences, and even the Berlin film festival, moved there and today just 14 of the 34 cinemas on or near the Ku'damm in the early 1990s still operate.
Earlier this year came another nail in the West Berlin coffin with the news that Zoo Station would be downgraded to regional status next year.
German train operator Deutsche Bahn plans to shift all intercity and international trains to the new steel-and-glass "Hauptbahnhof" by the time the World Cup masses arrive in the summer.
More than 80,000 West Berlin residents have already signed a petition to preserve the status of Zoo Station, immortalised by David Bowie and U2, and the heart of the walled-in city.
Few Berliners relish the thought of an extra trek to the poorly connected new train station, built on a windswept, muddy site north of the chancellery. But the decision appears final, and Berliners will no doubt adapt as they have to all the other changes through the years.
An even greater trek is looming in coming years when both West Berlin airports - the architectural jewels that are Tegel and Tempelhof - are shut by court order to drive on development of a new airport in the badlands to the east of the city.
For many Berliners, though, the most surprising news in the life and death of West Berlin was the announcement in recent days that the Paris Bar is insolvent. The restaurant was the living-room of the West Berlin smart set, the so-called Schickeria of actors, television hosts, journalists and their hairdressers.
It remained an oasis of familiarity in an ever-changing city, run somewhat erratically by a team of French-speaking waiters and an Austrian owner who sizes up customers - and seats them accordingly - by the condition of their shoes.
A few customers came for the pricey, unspectacular French fare served until 1am, but most came for the strong cocktails and the buzzing, amusing scenes, like the time Madonna barged in without a reservation and sat down only to be politely informed that the table was reserved for ageing actress Gina Lollobrigida. Madonna asked in a loud voice: "Who the f**k is Gina Lollobrigida?"
The star wattage has dwindled in the years since Berlin's centre of gravity moved east. While Gerhard Schröder's wife, Doris, could still be seen in the Paris Bar seated next to leather-faced German designer Wolfgang Joop, her husband preferred the Wiener Schnitzel in Borchardt, just off the Friedrichstraße in the east, along with younger German stars and well-heeled visitors.
Despite the new competition, Paris Bar owner Michel Würthle made a gamble and opened a bar next door to the restaurant a few years ago.
But it failed to take off and earlier this month city officials raided the restaurant because of unpaid taxes and employee social insurance contributions. Now the restaurant is being managed by a court-appointed receiver and its future is uncertain.
It's the end of an era for what's left of West Berlin, but, happily, not the end. Upmarket retailers who went east to try their luck on the renovated Friedrichstraße are moving back west in record numbers to the Ku'damm, still the only decent shopping street in the city.
New Berliners who believed the hype and settled in the eastern neighbourhoods of Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain in the 1990s are also starting to drift westward in search of a decent mixture of shops, services and nightlife.
And, in an ideological victory for the west, the socialist animals in the former East Berlin zoo will soon be forced to move in with their capitalist cousins in the West Berlin zoo, beside the soon-to-be downgraded Zoo Station.
It's just another chapter in the life of a city once famously described as "always becoming, never being", where the only constant is change.
