It's been 30 years since I was there. Back then, it was a high-class, brightly colored, glitzy area, with the prison-like E. Berlin, all drab and gray, within plain view. What contrast.
And now the place is crawling with these ragtime cowboys? "There goes the neighborhood." The Germans have self-inflicted this. The Zoo station has become a zoo.
Ideally, zoos keep the animals from attacking the patrons.