The erection of the border severed all contact between the two halves of the city. Neither friends nor acquaintances, not even close relatives, were allowed   to visit each other. It was not until three years thereafter, on December 18, 1963, that the West Berlin  Senate succeeded in concluding an agreement with the government of the GDR with the consent of the West  German government and the western Allies. During the period around Christmas and New Year's, arguably the most important holidays in Germany, the border was opened to West Berliners. Despite lengthy delays, immensely long waiting lines at the border crossing points, and considerable inconvenience caused by East German border officials, more than 700,000 people took the opportunity to obtain a pass. By 1966, three more pass agreements had been concluded. In 1972 a Traffic Treaty was signed, which introduced a number of travel facilities but it covered mainly the population of West Berlin, not that of East Berlin. Formerly the main junction of Berlin's network of streetcar and subway lines, the station on Friedrichstraße in the eastern part of Berlin became the central meeting place for Westerners visiting East Berlin. In the large hall next to the station heart-rending reunions and partings were witnessed, scenes that soon prompted Berliners to refer to the location as the "palace of tears". When on September 9, 1964, the government of the GDR permitted East German citizens of retirement age to travel to the West, Berliners dubbed the place "pensioner's station" because these journeys, too, usually originated at the Friedrichstrasse station.