BERLIN – Restoration work has started on the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, which has been crumbling from age and damaged by vandals and trophy hunters.

The stretch known as the East Side Gallery is a 3/4-mile (1.3 kilometer) stretch in Berlin's Friedrichshain neighborhood that 118 international artists commissioned by the city covered with graffiti in 1990.

Today it attracts droves of tourists, who pose for snapshots in front of the murals.

The approximately euro2.2 million (US$3 million), one-year project will see much of the original concrete removed and replaced with better-quality materials, and then finished with a surface that will better keep the artwork from flaking off.