11 US cities where you can see pieces of the Berlin Wall

Washington D.C.: The Newseum houses eight sections of the wall along with an East German guard tower that once stood over Checkpoint Charlie. (Hurry if you want to see it, however: the museum closes on Dec. 31.)

The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center also hosts a section of the wall.

Another piece is housed at the office of the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) Command in Reston, Virginia.

New York: In 2004, the German Consulate gifted two sections to New York City, which displayed them at Kowsky Plaza in Battery Park. The pieces were painted by French artist Thierry Noir, who is said to be the first street artist to tag the Berlin Wall.

New York:Real-estate magnate Jerry Speyer bought five sections from the East German government. They're on display at a plaza located behind520 Madison Avenue at West 53rd Street.

New York: Another section of the Berlin Wall is located in the United Nations Sculpture Garden on Manhattan's east side. However, visitors can only view it as part of a special tour during summer.

This section was a 2002 gift from Wolfgang Thierse, president of Germany's Bundestag, to then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Anan.

Cincinnati: It's only right that a city as Germanic as Cincinnati has its own section of the wall. It's also fitting that its piece resides at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which commemorates the abolition movement and America's own human-rights struggle.

Chicago: A segment stands inside the Chicago Transit Authority's Western Station (brown line) at 4648 N. Western Avenue. The surrounding neighborhood of Lincoln Square has been historically German.

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas:The words to Reagan's famous "tear down this wall" are spray-painted on one of three pieces donated to the city of Fort Leavenworth. This Kansas city is home to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, a postgraduate school for the U.S. military.

The segments are displayed to look as if they're falling, symbolizing a day many Americans never expected to see in their lifetimes.

Fulton, Missouri: Westminster College is home to "Breakthrough," a Berlin Wall monument consisting of eight segments, two of which look like a human punched a hole through them. It's the brainchild of Edwina Sandys, granddaughter to Winston Churchill, who delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech at the school in 1946.

"I had always wanted to make a sculpture for the Churchill Memorial at Westminster, and this seemed the perfect moment to do something," Sandys said, according to the Churchill Museum website. "Friends in Berlin had come back with tiny little pieces of wall, and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to make a sculpture?' I thought I'd better go straight (to Berlin) while there was some wall left."

Officials liked the idea of a Berlin Wall monument at the site of the Iron Curtain speech and let her choose eight sections to donate to Westminster College. She chose ones from near the Brandenburg Gate because of their colorful graffiti, especially the segment marked "Uhwahr" ("untrue" in German).

Houston: One panel is on display at Rice University, outside the James Baker Institute for Public Policy. Baker, secretary of state under George H.W. Bush, was in office when the wall in 1989, and Germany was formally reunified on Oct. 3, 1990.

Los Angeles: The 10-panel section of the Berlin Wall at the Variety Building (5900 Wilshire Boulevard) in Beverly Hills is the largest section outside of Germany. Like many other sections, it's largely covered in graffiti.

Los Angeles: Another section is on display outside the Malone Student Center at Loyola Marymount University, a Jesuit college near the Los Angeles International Airport. Its section came about thanks to the work of a former political science professor who now teaches in Berlin.

Chapman University, located in Orange County, also hosts one section. It's located outside of Roosevelt Hall.