CITICHAT 21/2008 - 30 May 2008
SAPOA Conference 2008
Spent yesterday at the Annual SAPOA Conference in Cape Town. It’s many years since I attended one of these – the last occasion was probably about seven or eight years back when I was invited to speak about the future of the Johannesburg Inner City. At that stage, it represented massive losses and provided no economic future as far as most of the then audience of property developers and property owners was concerned. I think I may have been a bit rude to them regarding their skepticism and their somewhat hostile attitude to the inner city, hence probably only being invited back now! This time it was to sit on a panel focusing on “Safer Cities, Safer South Africa: Remedy to Crime the New York way.”
The Conference was held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC). Although built in 2003, this was my first visit to this particular facility. It is as good as anything I’ve seen in many other cities in the world and, in fact, better than many. Last year, 2007, the Centre recorded a turnover in excess of R100 million and made a significant contribution to job creation both direct and indirect. Over 45 000 international delegates were attracted to the centre last year which also recorded the highest number of visitor days since opening, 1 242 000. (number of delegates x conference days) of which nearly 250 000 were international delegates. Surveys have shown that “international conference delegates spend on average R2 400 per delegate per day on registration, accommodation, local travel and transportation, gastronomy and souvenirs.” The macroeconomic effect of the CTICC is measured in terms of its contribution to the South African GDP – an amazing R6.86 billion over the past five years with foreign exchange earnings of nearly R1 billion from 2004 to the end of their 2007 financial year. They evidently have great expansion plans which will quite dramatically increase the space they occupy and thus the facilities they can offer. There can be little doubt that the lack of a facility of this standard and size is a negative for our inner city. Convention Centres in Sandton and Midrand do not bring much or any value to the inner city itself. Ah, but I can hear many thinking, “Cape Town is Cape Town, an inner city venue in Johannesburg would not be able to compete!” I don’t believe that, never have – over time we could offer something special, we certainly have unique experiences on our doorstep for delegates and their partners to visit. Yes but the xenophobia? Well, I learnt that Cape Town has just as many displaced people as we have.
So what does the cream of South Africa’s property industry discuss when they come together en masse? This year Economic Development; Emerging Markets Perspectives on Development and Retail; Foreign Land Ownership; Safer Cities; Delivery and Capacity. All highly pertinent to where the property industry finds itself. Due to arriving a bit late, I missed the keynote address by Tom Boardman, the CEO of Nedbank, but I believe it was very positive, as keynote addresses generally are, and partly centered around the issue of leadership in turn-around situations such as his company has been experiencing. There wasn’t a copy of his address available, but I believe it will be on the SAPOA webpage at the end of next week for those who may be interested. Anyway, Nedbank was of course one of the major institutions that fled the city having built a multi million (if not billion) rand edifice in umlungustan as would truly befit a prestigious financial institution. That was of course before Boardman’s appointment. Leadership in turn-around situations?, hmmm, wonder what he would have done about the location of their head office! It could have been a double whammy, a business turn-around occurring in parallel with assisting a city turn-around.
I was in time for a panel discussion entitled “Harnessing the Property Sector for Economic Development” which was introduced by Sizwe Nxedlana, the property economist at Standard Bank (Standard didn’t flee the inner city but stayed and continues to pump in investment!) His short term forecasts for the economy were as dismal as one would expect and clearly things will get a lot worse before they get better. He seems to see just post-2010 as being a possible tuning point. I’ve always wondered if just post-2010 won’t be stagnant as all the major 2010 capital investment comes to an end, but he’s the economist. One figure that stuck in my mind from his presentation was that in the past four weeks 23 of every 100 persons looking for a job were unable to find employment – put that way our unemployment issue becomes a much more stark reality. Interestingly, the profile of this group is ‘young, black, mainly female and generally uneducated’. That makes me realize again how little we have been able to dent the unemployment issue over the past fourteen years and that lack of education is so key in unlocking the problem.
Panelist, Manye Moroka, the Director General of the National Department of Public Works, gave an interesting answer to an irate property company who was querying the short length of leases (two years) that the Department were now negotiating. Evidently the new policy is that the length of lease is determined by your company’s BEE status – the higher the BEE holding the longer the lease!
I wanted to ask him what his department was planning to do with their decaying buildings that blight many of our cities such as the old Police Barracks in Marshall Street. Before I could do so, he said that the Department had just finished a detailed examination of every building in their R100 billion property portfolio and had developed a policy regarding improving the use of various buildings as well as disposing of others. The policy is just waiting for the signature of the Minister. But I’ve heard that story for a long, long time!
A particularly interesting session was on an “Emerging Market Perspective on Development and Retail – Dual Realities and Challenges.” Two scenarios were presented – one of India and the other of China. The two speakers were Rajnish Changrani, Vice President of Equity Investments of a company called Red Fort Capital in India and Martin Wragge, Director of Cobrole, Ltd. Martin is better known in South Africa as the erstwhile developer of Canal Walk, Century City, Ratanga Junction and Tyger Valley Centre all here in the Cape than as a developer in China.
Both presentations were thought provoking. Rajnish Changrani explained why his large investment company does not invest in retail in India. Evidently, some 95% of all retail in India is single, stand-alone shops usually family owned. The other 5% is in malls. Malls however tend to be a series of shops disconnected from each other and parking is usually not provided. The very high cost of land makes rentals un-affordable other than by the anchor tenant. As a result, a number of malls are being recycled into other activities. The development sector in India also faces major challenges such as no clear cut evidence of land ownership; rapid urbanization involving many millions of people (20 million condominiums are required over the next 10 to 15 years!); a huge shortage of skilled labour; and, again, the very high land prices. All of this results in unaffordable sale prices or rentals. He stated that there are very few ‘good deals’ where land title is in place; plans prepared and skills available. Corruption is clearly a major issue – of one Rupee set aside for infrastructure, only 0.15 finds its way ultimately into the project, the balance generally into the pockets of others, particularly politicians!
Much of the land is not generating enough to sustain the population. In Kolkata, a number of PPPs are introducing a new approach to land reform. Farmers are being persuaded to give up non-generating land in return for a shareholding in the development on their land. The profits generated by the development thus become their income, making it beneficial for them to give up their land and results in poor farmers becoming real stakeholders in the country. I have always said that the urban revitalization of the inner city will never be complete until there is an equitable distribution of the ownership of property. I therefore related to Rajnish’s comments and those made by one of the panelists in the previous session, Wayne van der Vent, head of Investments at PIC, who said that the previously disadvantaged have been bricklayers, carpenters, tea ladies and security guards in the property industry for far too long and now is the time for them to be included as real stakeholders in the economy.
China, population 1,3 billion, has 660 cities of which 100 have a population of more than a million. Twenty million people a year are moving to the cities – Shanghai will grow from 20 to 80 million within a short space of time. The current 190 000 kms of expressways will be increased to 370 000 by 2010! The mind boggles at the rate of growth, however, as became clear from Martin Wragge’s presentation, China represents an “enormously complex” market.
Martin Wragge was part of a non-property delegation to China in 2001. However, in a city of about 1.5 million people that he visited, he noticed that the city was divided into two distinct areas with a large, 180 ha. piece of farm land between the two sections. He sensed that the farmland was going to become the centre of development at some stage in the future and that the right development, now, would accelerate this trend. Within four days he had tied up a “deal” with the City Council to basically evict the two thousand farmers and develop substantial residential accommodation, small retail and park facilities. The eviction was done with 24 hours notice before commencing to demolish the houses. In essence he would build a 100 ha. park which would be handed back to the City Council for use by all residents in exchange for which he would retain the balance of 80 hectares for basically high-rise residential development and a small retail facility. One year later he was breaking ground and has completed a substantial number of units, the park and is now busy constructing the retail and a 21 storey office tower. These latter were “imposed” on the development for political reasons. He described the difficulty of the process and the high level of political involvement and demands for facilities that were just not logical nor economic.
Of course the eviction of the 2000 farmers created quite a stir at the conference. Wragge’s justification - “ 2000 farmers were living on the ground and not using it – in ten years time they’ll still be there not using it.” However, it later transpired that the evictees were not left without accommodation. Wragge lauded the dynamic leadership in China at all levels of government that has resulted in its robust economy. There are no squatters or low cost developments – if the farmers were evicted then they would have been appropriately relocated “the city takes care of their own” He pointed to the squatter camps that line the drive from Cape Town airport to the city stating that this would just not be acceptable in China. “In China they do what is necessary to go forward – here we are held hostage by people who have no idea of economics and what is need to be done”
This approach led to a question from the floor as to whether the panel was suggesting that development could only take place in countries like China where people could be summarily moved off the land and where there was a high level of political meddling and corruption!
The third panelist in this session was Ian Watt, better known to most as Head of Old Mutual Properties but now in a new position that bears the imposing title of “Innovator in Chief - Retail Xpressions”. He made some interesting comments from his extensive international exposure. South Africans developers/ property investors tend to think that all the problems that they experience are unique to the country, he said. Wherever you go, the problems were all similar to what we are experiencing in South Africa. For instance, in Italy, all Bulgarian workers have recently been sent home but the world doesn’t shout ‘xenophobia’; in India you get 30% of the water you apply for, and there are constant blackouts. And, as we heard, corruption is rife. There are complex developmental issues in China and in India hardship is a part of daily life. Yet, everyone in those countries does not go about in a mood of gloom and despair. They get on doing what has to be done, often in conditions far worse than we can imagine. He suggested that we should be far more entrepreneurial than we are.
The SAPOA annual award for Innovative Excellence in Property Development in the category ‘Office Developments’ was won by Turbine Square Newtown which also was awarded the Overall Sapoa Award for Innovate Excellence. Yes! Joburg Inner City scores again!
A good first day at the conference with lots of issues to chew on, regards from a wet and blustery Cape Town, neil
Friday, May 30, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Progress West to East Citichat 23 May 2008
CITICHAT 20/2008 - 23 May 2008
West to East and...
Hypercities and multi-national populations
Interesting commentary in the May 26th issue of ‘Time’ on “City Limits” by Rami Khouri. The article focuses on the “dazzling metropolises that are rising across the Gulf”, Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, etc. He uses a new word to describe them – ‘hypercities’, well, new for me. Essentially he is commenting on the fact that fast growth, bold expansion, streamlined service delivery and openness to the rest of the world are remarkable achievements but are not the key attributes of great cities. Comparing them to ‘enduring cities’ such as London, Istanbul, New Delhi and New York City, he says that whilst they share, to varying degrees, multi-national populations, expanding economies and efficient infrastructure, what is missing is cultural production, intellectual and scientific output and pluralistic politics. Hmmm! Makes you think, doesn’t it? Don’t try to score us, we are evidently suddenly unable to even come to terms with the first of those for whatever the underlying reason! If you didn’t read Mamphela Ramphele’s article in yesterday’s Star, do yourself a favour and do so. She provides an incisive analysis into our current state of affairs. In her closing remarks she comments “Self-respect and respect for others is what defines us as human. We need a social movement to promote a value system that balances material, aesthetic and spiritual needs of our society. Reigniting a focus on ethical behaviour would go a long way to reducing levels of crime and abuse of women and children” And lots else besides!
If you want to provide practical assistance in the current crisis please go to the end of this Citichat.
More Meandering – West to East
Found some time to do a bit more ‘city-meandering’ this week and had a look at what’s happening west to east and generally between Market and Anderson and then around New Doornfontein.
First, some general impressions. The area I went through is decidedly cleaner these days although there are still problem areas.
Secondly, the new pavement programme is making a difference in the areas that have been completed but also with some problems. For instance, the JDA did a great job of providing new pavements in the Jewel City precinct with a mixture of brick and concrete paving with some lovely inset mosaic panels done by local artists - but they are already starting to look scruffy. Surely there should be a special and regular cleaning programme, such as high pressure water or steam cleaning, instituted wherever new high quality work such as this has been installed? The ongoing project of renewing pavements now underway over a large area of Hillbrow and to eventually cover the city centre area, will be a waste of money if we are not going to have a proper programme to maintain the surfaces and street furniture from day one! With our volume of foot traffic, it won’t take long for the new surfaces to be so ingrained with dust, dirt, vehicle exhausts and general litter, that they will look as if they had never been renewed.
Thirdly, an added problem in the Jewel Street area is that there are no refuse bins! Well, I did see three of the old circular concrete bins in Berea Street which is the eastern edge of the Jewel City precinct but there is not one bin on either side of the upgraded pavements to Main Street right up to End Street, about 200 metres! In fact the only bin I could find was corner Nugget, about 400 metres from Berea Street. Does Pikitup think that the new pavements are going to stop people littering?. That’s crazy! Everyone throws their rubbish onto the new pavements because there are no bins and the rubbish gets ground into the new surfaces. Another example of Council working in silos.
Fourthly, some years ago whilst visiting Japan I just couldn’t find my way around because I couldn’t read the Japanese street names but, at least, there was a sign on every corner for you to co-ordinate with your street map. Here, I drove around the inner city for a couple of hours, a city that I think I know quite well, but trying to keep track of where you see things of interest makes it very apparent that street names are generally conspicuous only by their absence. Hey, when the anticipated mob arrive for 2010, don’t tell them to go to such-and-such a road because there is no way they’ll find it nor know when they’re in it.
This leads me into thinking that we have a long way to go with our much vaunted new urban management system. Surely missing street names, out of date street signs and those that have been bashed by traffic, human and vehicle, need to be attended to. There’s a no-parking pole in Harrison Street close to Market that was knocked flat six to eight weeks ago if not more. It lies flattened across the pavement and you have to jump over it for fear of tripping. The result is a scruffy, unmanaged, don’t care appearance that is disappointing. If we can get all of these issues attended to before 2019, will we revert to our current levels of management thereafter?
So, is there any good news? Sure! Lots! My final impression is in fact that there is still a lot of energy in the inner city. Down on the western end, the construction of the Johannesburg Land Company’s new highrise office building, to be the head office of Zurich Re, is moving apace. Now with ground and first floor out of the ground, it won’t be long before it makes its presence felt on the western skyline. It will be in good company with the conversions that have taken place to its immediate south-east around Marshall and Anderson Streets, the Mapungubwe, Dogon, Ashanti Isibaya, he new AAC parking garage, etc etc. Still in the early design stage is the extension that Standard Bank is planning to their massive campus on what has traditionally been called the Ussher site but I’m sure it won’t be that long before construction activity commences, maybe next year.
On the opposite, eastern side of town, excavation of the basements of the two huge ABSA blocks look as though they are completed but it will still take some time before new construction appears above ground level as they each appear to have quite a number of basement floors to be constructed first. One covers the block between Main and Marshall, Troye to Delvers and the other a double block from Troye to Von Wielligh Marshall to Anderson. Nice to jave two major new office blocks of the order of R1billion each under construction on opposite sides of the city centre.
East of the growing ABSA campus and just east of the Jewel City precinct is a new development being billed as ‘Arts on Main’ using the yard and offices of the DF Corlett construction company amongst one of the oldest surviving companies in Johannesburg The press release I was sent says the following:
“Arts on Main is a creative hub of artists, creative companies and residents. The building has been converted from the DF Corlett construction company offices and warehouse. It is a mixed use development with commercial, retail, residential and studio spaces. The spaces will be sold as shells so that the buyers have the opportunity to implement their own ideas. The conversion honors the building’s history highlighting features such as the double volume ceilings, concrete floors and over sized windows, while adding new features such as the courtyards and roof gardens. Other interesting features include an open air cinema, common area exhibition space and a deli for the convenience of the tenants. Arts on Main is situated in the emerging City and Suburban area in the Eastern CBD, in close proximity to the Absa head quarters and Ellis Park, and opposite Jewel City, the expanding diamond exchange.
The plans have been drawn up by Daffonchio and Associates whose design work focuses on energy efficiency and awareness of the broader effects that buildings have on the environment. Daffonchio and Associates are 1 of 6 architectural firms who have been chosen to design the Monaghan Farm development and have completed projects such as the UNESCO world heritage sight in the Cradle of Human Kind. (http://www.daffonchio.co.za/)
There is a strong relationship with the Nirox Art foundation, an artists’ residency and sculpture park situated in the Cradle of Humankind. Affiliated facilities will include city digs for visiting international artists, reciprocal exhibitions & performances, cross-venue workshops, lectures and artists’ collaborations, priority participation in events and network access. (http://niroxarts.com/)
Buyers and tenants in the development will include artists, dance studios, recording studios, advertising companies and other related industries.
There are limited retail, commercial and residential spaces available to both buy and rent. In order to maintain our values we have placed a strong emphasis on the tenant mix that will define Arts on Main. The most important criteria is that they will have to be involved in a creative industry and add value to the artists community within Arts on Main.”
The city produces some fascinating uses that greatly adds to its culture and diversity – that’s one to watch with interest!
Between the new ABSA and Zurich Re buildings, east and west, is a great deal of refurbishment activity. OPH have done a fine job of the two once disgusting blocks on the corner of Eloff, Marshall and Anderson Streets right up to the current sorry mess that is the “Irish Barracks” – another monument to the State’s total inability to maintain and manage their built-form assets. OPH are also responsible for more refurbishment and alterations to their buildings also in Marshall Street that form the southern boundary of Gandhi Square. Afhco are doing an impressive large residential block in Kruis Street between Main and Marshall and the Colosseum opposite the Carlton Centre appears to also be in the process of conversion to residential . Incidentally driving west down the short stretch of Main between Kruis and Eloff Streets are some amazing gabled buildings – one building, number 113, proudly proclaims ‘1914’ on its gable and has been really well renovated.
Driving down Commissioner, City Props, whose signboard is becoming ubiquitous throughout the inner city, are doing a renovation to the building on the corner of Commissioner and Joubert Streets which I seem to remember as the JBS Building. Opposite I see that the crumbling old CNA building has a massive billboard covering most of its Commissioner Street frontage. To me, this is cause for great concern as the block with CNA, Shakespeare House and the New Kempsey Building was purchased some years back by Urban Ocean amongst lots of publicity about creating new apartments, but the buildings still stand mutely with no signs of progress other than decay. My concern is that the developers probably are comfortable with their new found billboard income as appears to also be the case with their completely wrapped 1 Rissik Street development – hopefully the new rates legislation which requires rates on improvements as well as land will be an incentive to get projects going and producing incomes. But, surely, we need to not allow non-performing developers the opportunity to earn big bucks from outdoor advertising. That’s just plain stupid. I see that Corner House still has a lane closed off in both Commissioner and Simmonds Streets. Let’s see, that must be four or five years now but there is no building activity in evidence. Diagonally opposite Corner House, the magnificent Standard Bank Chambers building is having scaffolding erected to its Commissioner Street face – hopefully this is for a freshening up of its façade.
Oh, forgot to mention that I had lunch at Picasso’s this week – it is at 87 Commissioner Street. The double volume ex banking hall of the 1902/3 First National Bank Building provides a wonderful space for the bar lounge on the ground level and the restaurant encircling it at Mezzanine level. Sadly there were only a handful of people lunching. Over the years I’ve had so many moans from folk that there is nowhere good to eat in the inner city and, now when there is, they don’t support them. Try the grilled cajun calamari – tender and delicious.
Commissioner into Sauer and then east up Market. I see a sign for offices to let on the Avril Malan building, not that long ago one of the most disgusting buildings in that part of town so hopefully we’ll see it being cleaned up before long. No sign of life around the Provincial Government buildings that line Market between Sauer and Simmonds nor in regard to the Beyers Naude Gardens. The old Boland Bank Building, now known as the Steytler, on the corner of Market and Loveday, has been completely refurbished as residential apartments. It’s about time the City found alternative ranking for the taxis in this section of Loveday Street. It might have once been in the middle of commercial activities but this is increasingly a residential precinct. The Steytler is followed by another lane closure in Market Street for building work evidently taking place to the buildings on the corner of Market, Rissik and Commissioner Streets. These once included the magnificent “Old Arcade”. I hear on the grapevine that there are emerging plans for the Rissik Street Post Office but don’t expect any progress over the next year. Oppenheimer Park remains a disgrace. Progressing up Market are some great refurbishments to fine old buildings, City Props appears to be prominent with these.
Reaching the eastern end of Market gave me an opportunity to shoot up north to look at what progress is being made around the Ellis Park precinct. Wow, this is like a giant civil-engineering site. On its eastern end Bertrams Road has been substantially widened for the BRT between Bezuidenhout Street and where it joins Charlton Terrace. This particular work did come to a grinding halt some time back due to the heritage authorities deciding on the future of the historic cottages along Derby Road. I understand that the recently released approval, following an inordinate delay, is to allow demolition of a couple of the cottages on the intersection of Derby and Bertrams to allow the Bertrams road widening for the BRT to continue but to renovate the balance if cottages. Sounds OK to me. The section of Charlton Terrace on the northern edge of New Doornfontein has been partially widened and the buildings on the north of Charlton Terrace are being demolished and the service station moved further north for the BRT roadway. From where Charlton Terrace becomes Saratoga Avenue, much of the road widening has been completed and demolition has just started on some of the buildings that were used previously by the Joburg Tech, now University of Jhb. The white and silver mosaics that were applied to the old columns carrying Joe Slovo Drive Bridge over Saratoga Avenue still look good although I see the inevitable posters starting to appear on them. Urban management!
The Ellis Park Rugby Stadium has construction work taking place all around it. What appears to be a new multi-level parking garage is being built on its east and structural steel towers or buttresses are being erected on its north elevation either for additional seating to be provided or roofing over that section – or both. The piece of open overgrown land between the rugby and the athletics stadia is no longer overgrown but has a multitude of earth-moving equipment crawling over it feverishly reshaping its surface.
There is much happening and much to be done but it is great to see the energy that all of this is producing – now if we can just keep it all reasonably clean and tidy! Hmmmm!
Ciao, neil
West to East and...
Hypercities and multi-national populations
Interesting commentary in the May 26th issue of ‘Time’ on “City Limits” by Rami Khouri. The article focuses on the “dazzling metropolises that are rising across the Gulf”, Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, etc. He uses a new word to describe them – ‘hypercities’, well, new for me. Essentially he is commenting on the fact that fast growth, bold expansion, streamlined service delivery and openness to the rest of the world are remarkable achievements but are not the key attributes of great cities. Comparing them to ‘enduring cities’ such as London, Istanbul, New Delhi and New York City, he says that whilst they share, to varying degrees, multi-national populations, expanding economies and efficient infrastructure, what is missing is cultural production, intellectual and scientific output and pluralistic politics. Hmmm! Makes you think, doesn’t it? Don’t try to score us, we are evidently suddenly unable to even come to terms with the first of those for whatever the underlying reason! If you didn’t read Mamphela Ramphele’s article in yesterday’s Star, do yourself a favour and do so. She provides an incisive analysis into our current state of affairs. In her closing remarks she comments “Self-respect and respect for others is what defines us as human. We need a social movement to promote a value system that balances material, aesthetic and spiritual needs of our society. Reigniting a focus on ethical behaviour would go a long way to reducing levels of crime and abuse of women and children” And lots else besides!
If you want to provide practical assistance in the current crisis please go to the end of this Citichat.
More Meandering – West to East
Found some time to do a bit more ‘city-meandering’ this week and had a look at what’s happening west to east and generally between Market and Anderson and then around New Doornfontein.
First, some general impressions. The area I went through is decidedly cleaner these days although there are still problem areas.
Secondly, the new pavement programme is making a difference in the areas that have been completed but also with some problems. For instance, the JDA did a great job of providing new pavements in the Jewel City precinct with a mixture of brick and concrete paving with some lovely inset mosaic panels done by local artists - but they are already starting to look scruffy. Surely there should be a special and regular cleaning programme, such as high pressure water or steam cleaning, instituted wherever new high quality work such as this has been installed? The ongoing project of renewing pavements now underway over a large area of Hillbrow and to eventually cover the city centre area, will be a waste of money if we are not going to have a proper programme to maintain the surfaces and street furniture from day one! With our volume of foot traffic, it won’t take long for the new surfaces to be so ingrained with dust, dirt, vehicle exhausts and general litter, that they will look as if they had never been renewed.
Thirdly, an added problem in the Jewel Street area is that there are no refuse bins! Well, I did see three of the old circular concrete bins in Berea Street which is the eastern edge of the Jewel City precinct but there is not one bin on either side of the upgraded pavements to Main Street right up to End Street, about 200 metres! In fact the only bin I could find was corner Nugget, about 400 metres from Berea Street. Does Pikitup think that the new pavements are going to stop people littering?. That’s crazy! Everyone throws their rubbish onto the new pavements because there are no bins and the rubbish gets ground into the new surfaces. Another example of Council working in silos.
Fourthly, some years ago whilst visiting Japan I just couldn’t find my way around because I couldn’t read the Japanese street names but, at least, there was a sign on every corner for you to co-ordinate with your street map. Here, I drove around the inner city for a couple of hours, a city that I think I know quite well, but trying to keep track of where you see things of interest makes it very apparent that street names are generally conspicuous only by their absence. Hey, when the anticipated mob arrive for 2010, don’t tell them to go to such-and-such a road because there is no way they’ll find it nor know when they’re in it.
This leads me into thinking that we have a long way to go with our much vaunted new urban management system. Surely missing street names, out of date street signs and those that have been bashed by traffic, human and vehicle, need to be attended to. There’s a no-parking pole in Harrison Street close to Market that was knocked flat six to eight weeks ago if not more. It lies flattened across the pavement and you have to jump over it for fear of tripping. The result is a scruffy, unmanaged, don’t care appearance that is disappointing. If we can get all of these issues attended to before 2019, will we revert to our current levels of management thereafter?
So, is there any good news? Sure! Lots! My final impression is in fact that there is still a lot of energy in the inner city. Down on the western end, the construction of the Johannesburg Land Company’s new highrise office building, to be the head office of Zurich Re, is moving apace. Now with ground and first floor out of the ground, it won’t be long before it makes its presence felt on the western skyline. It will be in good company with the conversions that have taken place to its immediate south-east around Marshall and Anderson Streets, the Mapungubwe, Dogon, Ashanti Isibaya, he new AAC parking garage, etc etc. Still in the early design stage is the extension that Standard Bank is planning to their massive campus on what has traditionally been called the Ussher site but I’m sure it won’t be that long before construction activity commences, maybe next year.
On the opposite, eastern side of town, excavation of the basements of the two huge ABSA blocks look as though they are completed but it will still take some time before new construction appears above ground level as they each appear to have quite a number of basement floors to be constructed first. One covers the block between Main and Marshall, Troye to Delvers and the other a double block from Troye to Von Wielligh Marshall to Anderson. Nice to jave two major new office blocks of the order of R1billion each under construction on opposite sides of the city centre.
East of the growing ABSA campus and just east of the Jewel City precinct is a new development being billed as ‘Arts on Main’ using the yard and offices of the DF Corlett construction company amongst one of the oldest surviving companies in Johannesburg The press release I was sent says the following:
“Arts on Main is a creative hub of artists, creative companies and residents. The building has been converted from the DF Corlett construction company offices and warehouse. It is a mixed use development with commercial, retail, residential and studio spaces. The spaces will be sold as shells so that the buyers have the opportunity to implement their own ideas. The conversion honors the building’s history highlighting features such as the double volume ceilings, concrete floors and over sized windows, while adding new features such as the courtyards and roof gardens. Other interesting features include an open air cinema, common area exhibition space and a deli for the convenience of the tenants. Arts on Main is situated in the emerging City and Suburban area in the Eastern CBD, in close proximity to the Absa head quarters and Ellis Park, and opposite Jewel City, the expanding diamond exchange.
The plans have been drawn up by Daffonchio and Associates whose design work focuses on energy efficiency and awareness of the broader effects that buildings have on the environment. Daffonchio and Associates are 1 of 6 architectural firms who have been chosen to design the Monaghan Farm development and have completed projects such as the UNESCO world heritage sight in the Cradle of Human Kind. (http://www.daffonchio.co.za/)
There is a strong relationship with the Nirox Art foundation, an artists’ residency and sculpture park situated in the Cradle of Humankind. Affiliated facilities will include city digs for visiting international artists, reciprocal exhibitions & performances, cross-venue workshops, lectures and artists’ collaborations, priority participation in events and network access. (http://niroxarts.com/)
Buyers and tenants in the development will include artists, dance studios, recording studios, advertising companies and other related industries.
There are limited retail, commercial and residential spaces available to both buy and rent. In order to maintain our values we have placed a strong emphasis on the tenant mix that will define Arts on Main. The most important criteria is that they will have to be involved in a creative industry and add value to the artists community within Arts on Main.”
The city produces some fascinating uses that greatly adds to its culture and diversity – that’s one to watch with interest!
Between the new ABSA and Zurich Re buildings, east and west, is a great deal of refurbishment activity. OPH have done a fine job of the two once disgusting blocks on the corner of Eloff, Marshall and Anderson Streets right up to the current sorry mess that is the “Irish Barracks” – another monument to the State’s total inability to maintain and manage their built-form assets. OPH are also responsible for more refurbishment and alterations to their buildings also in Marshall Street that form the southern boundary of Gandhi Square. Afhco are doing an impressive large residential block in Kruis Street between Main and Marshall and the Colosseum opposite the Carlton Centre appears to also be in the process of conversion to residential . Incidentally driving west down the short stretch of Main between Kruis and Eloff Streets are some amazing gabled buildings – one building, number 113, proudly proclaims ‘1914’ on its gable and has been really well renovated.
Driving down Commissioner, City Props, whose signboard is becoming ubiquitous throughout the inner city, are doing a renovation to the building on the corner of Commissioner and Joubert Streets which I seem to remember as the JBS Building. Opposite I see that the crumbling old CNA building has a massive billboard covering most of its Commissioner Street frontage. To me, this is cause for great concern as the block with CNA, Shakespeare House and the New Kempsey Building was purchased some years back by Urban Ocean amongst lots of publicity about creating new apartments, but the buildings still stand mutely with no signs of progress other than decay. My concern is that the developers probably are comfortable with their new found billboard income as appears to also be the case with their completely wrapped 1 Rissik Street development – hopefully the new rates legislation which requires rates on improvements as well as land will be an incentive to get projects going and producing incomes. But, surely, we need to not allow non-performing developers the opportunity to earn big bucks from outdoor advertising. That’s just plain stupid. I see that Corner House still has a lane closed off in both Commissioner and Simmonds Streets. Let’s see, that must be four or five years now but there is no building activity in evidence. Diagonally opposite Corner House, the magnificent Standard Bank Chambers building is having scaffolding erected to its Commissioner Street face – hopefully this is for a freshening up of its façade.
Oh, forgot to mention that I had lunch at Picasso’s this week – it is at 87 Commissioner Street. The double volume ex banking hall of the 1902/3 First National Bank Building provides a wonderful space for the bar lounge on the ground level and the restaurant encircling it at Mezzanine level. Sadly there were only a handful of people lunching. Over the years I’ve had so many moans from folk that there is nowhere good to eat in the inner city and, now when there is, they don’t support them. Try the grilled cajun calamari – tender and delicious.
Commissioner into Sauer and then east up Market. I see a sign for offices to let on the Avril Malan building, not that long ago one of the most disgusting buildings in that part of town so hopefully we’ll see it being cleaned up before long. No sign of life around the Provincial Government buildings that line Market between Sauer and Simmonds nor in regard to the Beyers Naude Gardens. The old Boland Bank Building, now known as the Steytler, on the corner of Market and Loveday, has been completely refurbished as residential apartments. It’s about time the City found alternative ranking for the taxis in this section of Loveday Street. It might have once been in the middle of commercial activities but this is increasingly a residential precinct. The Steytler is followed by another lane closure in Market Street for building work evidently taking place to the buildings on the corner of Market, Rissik and Commissioner Streets. These once included the magnificent “Old Arcade”. I hear on the grapevine that there are emerging plans for the Rissik Street Post Office but don’t expect any progress over the next year. Oppenheimer Park remains a disgrace. Progressing up Market are some great refurbishments to fine old buildings, City Props appears to be prominent with these.
Reaching the eastern end of Market gave me an opportunity to shoot up north to look at what progress is being made around the Ellis Park precinct. Wow, this is like a giant civil-engineering site. On its eastern end Bertrams Road has been substantially widened for the BRT between Bezuidenhout Street and where it joins Charlton Terrace. This particular work did come to a grinding halt some time back due to the heritage authorities deciding on the future of the historic cottages along Derby Road. I understand that the recently released approval, following an inordinate delay, is to allow demolition of a couple of the cottages on the intersection of Derby and Bertrams to allow the Bertrams road widening for the BRT to continue but to renovate the balance if cottages. Sounds OK to me. The section of Charlton Terrace on the northern edge of New Doornfontein has been partially widened and the buildings on the north of Charlton Terrace are being demolished and the service station moved further north for the BRT roadway. From where Charlton Terrace becomes Saratoga Avenue, much of the road widening has been completed and demolition has just started on some of the buildings that were used previously by the Joburg Tech, now University of Jhb. The white and silver mosaics that were applied to the old columns carrying Joe Slovo Drive Bridge over Saratoga Avenue still look good although I see the inevitable posters starting to appear on them. Urban management!
The Ellis Park Rugby Stadium has construction work taking place all around it. What appears to be a new multi-level parking garage is being built on its east and structural steel towers or buttresses are being erected on its north elevation either for additional seating to be provided or roofing over that section – or both. The piece of open overgrown land between the rugby and the athletics stadia is no longer overgrown but has a multitude of earth-moving equipment crawling over it feverishly reshaping its surface.
There is much happening and much to be done but it is great to see the energy that all of this is producing – now if we can just keep it all reasonably clean and tidy! Hmmmm!
Ciao, neil
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Newtown Numsa Citichat 16 May 2008
CITICHAT 19/2008 - 16 May 2008
Newtown – filling in the blanks
Wrote about the NUMSA building last week and subsequently received a whole lot of additional information about both the development and the site which rounds off what last week’s comments. Also some fascinating writing on early Newtown itself from historian Sue Krige.
Had a walk through the site with the architect, Brian Howard, who explained exactly what was being done and what was proposed. The first assembly of sites is the block bounded by Bree through to Gwigwi Mrwebi and between Gerard Sekoto and Miriam Makeba (ie the whole block but with the exception of the corner of Bree and Miriam Makeba). The Head Office takes up the remaining width of Bree behind which a large secure parking area has been created which at its northern end is closed by another structure on the corner of Gwigwi Mrwebi and Gerard Sekoto. This appears to be an old building, once a corner shop, with residential over, now being extended and refurbished. The upper level will serve as offices for the ILO whilst the previous corner shop will most likely be a coffee shop. A great deal of care is being taken to refurbish the corner shop with new components being made where necessary to match the detail of what was there such as the narrow timber shopfront/windows, pressed metal ceilings , the capping to the steel pipe columns on the street and the traditional narrow stoep style frontage. The vacant site making up the balance of the block to the west of the development will ultimately be redeveloped by NUMSA probably retail to match this corner shop at ground level and offices above.
The conference centre building is on the corner of Bree and Gerard Sekoto and, apart from meeting rooms and conference facilities, provides about 20 bedrooms for visiting delegates. This is insufficient so the adjacent building on Bree Street has been acquired for redevelopment to an hotel facility.
All round, this will be a development cluster that will do justice to its own and to Newtown’s past. Historian Sue Krige has kindly supplied some fascinating history
Stand 157 corner of Bree and Becker (now Gerard Sekoto)
“Plans for this stand go back to 1912. In 1912, the Shagam brothers applied for permission from the Johannesburg City Council to build a new ‘warehouse and stable’ on Stand number 157, corner of Bree and Becker Streets, Newtown. From the plans we also know that they had previously been located at a building at 62 Marshall Street, in the Johannesburg CBD. We do not know what buildings, if any, were located on Stand 157 before 1912.
However, 1912 is a very important date in the history of Newtown itself. Construction had begun on a fresh produce market, a building now occupied by the Market Theatre and Museum Africa. An area of 27 acres was surveyed and a large market hall, two blocks in length, was built at the western end of Bree Street, opened in 1913.
A number of people in Newtown set up businesses to serve the Market, such as cold storage rooms, farriers and blacksmiths(to look after the horses), machine repair workshops, eating houses, and accommodation. Later petrol stations and mechanical repair shops replaced farriers and blacksmiths in serving the needs of motorized transport. The Market moved to its present location south of the M2 in 1974.
Between 1912 and 1916, the Shagam bothers submitted plans for new shops, offices, and outbuildings, and for extensions to these buildings. Business must have been good.
The next set of plans for Stand 157 concerns the building of a hotel, to be called the Prince of Wales Hotel. The date is 1938. We know that this was a new building, so the shops and other buildings belonging to the Shagam brothers must have been demolished. We do not know what happened to the Shagam brothers. The new owner was someone called Mr L Weiler.
The Hotel was named after King Edward VIII, who actually abdicated in 1936. There was no Prince of Wales in 1938!
The 1938 plans was not the first set drawn up. From documents in the Johannesburg City Council we know that the first set accommodated Black men in the hotel itself. The plans had to be changed to house Black men in ‘boys rooms’ on the roof’. Below is an extract from the Minutes of the City Council about separate ‘boys’ rooms’ for the hotel. (Most Black workers were housed in compounds at a number of places in Newtown, including the restored compound, the Workers Library and Museum.)
REPORT TO TOWN PLANNING COMMITTEE – MEETING (28 April 1938)
Item 11 Hotel and Native Quarters on Stand No. 157. A. Newtown
This is a 50’ by 92’ corner Stand on the North Eastern corner of Bree and Becker Streets, with frontages of 50 ft and 100 ft respectively. The plan, which shows a four storey hotel and the native quarters consisting of two rooms which are situated on the first and second floors respectively, was approved by the Town Planning Department on 10th March, 1938.
The matter was reported to the Non European Housing and Native Administration Committee and at their meeting on the 31st March 1938, they resolved as follows:
“That reference be sent to the Town Planning and Works Committees objecting to the proposed situation of the native quarters on Stand 157, corner Becker and Bree Streets, Newtown and intimating that such objection will be withdrawn if the native quarters are located on the roof of the building.”
The area is provisionally zoned “General Areas” in Zone 2, permitting a residential building and native quarters by special consent of the Council.
I RECOMMEND:
(a) That the resolution passed by the Committee on 10th March 1938 be rescinded, namely:
“That no objection be raised to the approval of the plan from a Town Planning point of view”
(b) “That no objection be raised to the approval of the plan from a Town Planning point of view, provided native quarters are placed on the roof of the building, and that the applicant be informed accordingly.”
By 1941, plans tell us that the Hotel had a new name and new owners. It was called the Newtown Hotel, and belonged to a company called City Bottle Store, belonging to Messers JC Cook and Cowan, well known architects in Johannesburg. Over time, the company name, City Bottle Store, remained the same but the company seemed to have changed owners. During the 1950s and 1960s the owners applied for permission to alter the hotel in various ways. In the middle of the 1980s, it was altered again, and its name changed to the Diggers’ Inn.
Famous Architects and the Newtown Hotel
A number of men who were well known architects seemed to have had a hand in the design of analterations to the hotel. They included Art Deco specialists Emley & Williamson, J.C. Cook & Cowen and Stanley Furner, who had been a partner of Kallenbach, architect of Gandhi’s Tolstoy Farm.”
Sue has also answered my query as to the background to building directly opposite NUMSA’s offices in Bree Street which I now hear is being used as a nightclub.
“This stand and buildings have had a very chequered history. In 1917 Schneier of London employed the architects D MacDonald Sinclair to design a premises for their use. It consisted of offices and stables. This construction was short lived, as a new building for Barclay's Bank was erected in 1919. This was even more short lived. In 1920, a new premises for Standard Bank was built jointly with a company called AS Traube, designed by architect Sol Margo. During the 1930s, it was used as a commercial building and owned by Bank Buildings (Pty) Ltd. In 1940, Barclay's Bank demolished the building and erected the one we see today. It was designed by architect Hugh Michelson.”
On early days in Newtown
“The names of owners of buildings in the early 20th century suggest that the majority of the occupants were of Jewish ancestry, though not all. Names like Shagam, Lipschitz, Shlom, Abrahams, Rosenzweig, Spitz etcetera are some of the names that crop up in the plans and in the Business directories of the time. According to Jaffee (2001) Jews from all over the world but especially from Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland made Johannesburg and Newtown their home and made their fortune as traders, wholesale merchants, grain brokers, commissioning agents and many other trades. Several of them were the first Randlords - Alfred Beit, Lionel Phillips, Barney Barnato, Solly Joel, George and Leopold Albu, Max Michaelis, and Sammy Marks. There were not only Jewish immigrants in Newtown but also German speaking eastern European immigrants, Afrikaners and Black immigrants from rural South Africa as well as other Southern African countries. Business in Newtown was brisk and deals could be brokered over the telephone or in the streets in those days “…a man’s word was his bond.”
“Life in Newtown was very busy and competitive, it was very easy to start a business but difficult to stay afloat and make a profit. Newtown became a little sub-culture with its own jokes and special events. Business people who had worked and become successful in Newtown were awarded the fictitious ‘University of Newtown’ certificate given to all the entrepreneurs and millers who learned the trade on the job.
Newtown in the early 1920s was a place where there was bustling trade but also a place where wives of the emerging businessmen and affluent were never brought. Streets were dusty and a mixture of horse manure, smoke and effluent made the smell quite unpleasant. According to Jaffee (2001), “…it was not uncommon to see people walking around with handkerchiefs around over their mouths.” Notwithstanding that Newtown grew to be an area that served not only the city but also the entire Witwatersrand region.”
Have a good weekend, regards neil
Newtown – filling in the blanks
Wrote about the NUMSA building last week and subsequently received a whole lot of additional information about both the development and the site which rounds off what last week’s comments. Also some fascinating writing on early Newtown itself from historian Sue Krige.
Had a walk through the site with the architect, Brian Howard, who explained exactly what was being done and what was proposed. The first assembly of sites is the block bounded by Bree through to Gwigwi Mrwebi and between Gerard Sekoto and Miriam Makeba (ie the whole block but with the exception of the corner of Bree and Miriam Makeba). The Head Office takes up the remaining width of Bree behind which a large secure parking area has been created which at its northern end is closed by another structure on the corner of Gwigwi Mrwebi and Gerard Sekoto. This appears to be an old building, once a corner shop, with residential over, now being extended and refurbished. The upper level will serve as offices for the ILO whilst the previous corner shop will most likely be a coffee shop. A great deal of care is being taken to refurbish the corner shop with new components being made where necessary to match the detail of what was there such as the narrow timber shopfront/windows, pressed metal ceilings , the capping to the steel pipe columns on the street and the traditional narrow stoep style frontage. The vacant site making up the balance of the block to the west of the development will ultimately be redeveloped by NUMSA probably retail to match this corner shop at ground level and offices above.
The conference centre building is on the corner of Bree and Gerard Sekoto and, apart from meeting rooms and conference facilities, provides about 20 bedrooms for visiting delegates. This is insufficient so the adjacent building on Bree Street has been acquired for redevelopment to an hotel facility.
All round, this will be a development cluster that will do justice to its own and to Newtown’s past. Historian Sue Krige has kindly supplied some fascinating history
Stand 157 corner of Bree and Becker (now Gerard Sekoto)
“Plans for this stand go back to 1912. In 1912, the Shagam brothers applied for permission from the Johannesburg City Council to build a new ‘warehouse and stable’ on Stand number 157, corner of Bree and Becker Streets, Newtown. From the plans we also know that they had previously been located at a building at 62 Marshall Street, in the Johannesburg CBD. We do not know what buildings, if any, were located on Stand 157 before 1912.
However, 1912 is a very important date in the history of Newtown itself. Construction had begun on a fresh produce market, a building now occupied by the Market Theatre and Museum Africa. An area of 27 acres was surveyed and a large market hall, two blocks in length, was built at the western end of Bree Street, opened in 1913.
A number of people in Newtown set up businesses to serve the Market, such as cold storage rooms, farriers and blacksmiths(to look after the horses), machine repair workshops, eating houses, and accommodation. Later petrol stations and mechanical repair shops replaced farriers and blacksmiths in serving the needs of motorized transport. The Market moved to its present location south of the M2 in 1974.
Between 1912 and 1916, the Shagam bothers submitted plans for new shops, offices, and outbuildings, and for extensions to these buildings. Business must have been good.
The next set of plans for Stand 157 concerns the building of a hotel, to be called the Prince of Wales Hotel. The date is 1938. We know that this was a new building, so the shops and other buildings belonging to the Shagam brothers must have been demolished. We do not know what happened to the Shagam brothers. The new owner was someone called Mr L Weiler.
The Hotel was named after King Edward VIII, who actually abdicated in 1936. There was no Prince of Wales in 1938!
The 1938 plans was not the first set drawn up. From documents in the Johannesburg City Council we know that the first set accommodated Black men in the hotel itself. The plans had to be changed to house Black men in ‘boys rooms’ on the roof’. Below is an extract from the Minutes of the City Council about separate ‘boys’ rooms’ for the hotel. (Most Black workers were housed in compounds at a number of places in Newtown, including the restored compound, the Workers Library and Museum.)
REPORT TO TOWN PLANNING COMMITTEE – MEETING (28 April 1938)
Item 11 Hotel and Native Quarters on Stand No. 157. A. Newtown
This is a 50’ by 92’ corner Stand on the North Eastern corner of Bree and Becker Streets, with frontages of 50 ft and 100 ft respectively. The plan, which shows a four storey hotel and the native quarters consisting of two rooms which are situated on the first and second floors respectively, was approved by the Town Planning Department on 10th March, 1938.
The matter was reported to the Non European Housing and Native Administration Committee and at their meeting on the 31st March 1938, they resolved as follows:
“That reference be sent to the Town Planning and Works Committees objecting to the proposed situation of the native quarters on Stand 157, corner Becker and Bree Streets, Newtown and intimating that such objection will be withdrawn if the native quarters are located on the roof of the building.”
The area is provisionally zoned “General Areas” in Zone 2, permitting a residential building and native quarters by special consent of the Council.
I RECOMMEND:
(a) That the resolution passed by the Committee on 10th March 1938 be rescinded, namely:
“That no objection be raised to the approval of the plan from a Town Planning point of view”
(b) “That no objection be raised to the approval of the plan from a Town Planning point of view, provided native quarters are placed on the roof of the building, and that the applicant be informed accordingly.”
By 1941, plans tell us that the Hotel had a new name and new owners. It was called the Newtown Hotel, and belonged to a company called City Bottle Store, belonging to Messers JC Cook and Cowan, well known architects in Johannesburg. Over time, the company name, City Bottle Store, remained the same but the company seemed to have changed owners. During the 1950s and 1960s the owners applied for permission to alter the hotel in various ways. In the middle of the 1980s, it was altered again, and its name changed to the Diggers’ Inn.
Famous Architects and the Newtown Hotel
A number of men who were well known architects seemed to have had a hand in the design of analterations to the hotel. They included Art Deco specialists Emley & Williamson, J.C. Cook & Cowen and Stanley Furner, who had been a partner of Kallenbach, architect of Gandhi’s Tolstoy Farm.”
Sue has also answered my query as to the background to building directly opposite NUMSA’s offices in Bree Street which I now hear is being used as a nightclub.
“This stand and buildings have had a very chequered history. In 1917 Schneier of London employed the architects D MacDonald Sinclair to design a premises for their use. It consisted of offices and stables. This construction was short lived, as a new building for Barclay's Bank was erected in 1919. This was even more short lived. In 1920, a new premises for Standard Bank was built jointly with a company called AS Traube, designed by architect Sol Margo. During the 1930s, it was used as a commercial building and owned by Bank Buildings (Pty) Ltd. In 1940, Barclay's Bank demolished the building and erected the one we see today. It was designed by architect Hugh Michelson.”
On early days in Newtown
“The names of owners of buildings in the early 20th century suggest that the majority of the occupants were of Jewish ancestry, though not all. Names like Shagam, Lipschitz, Shlom, Abrahams, Rosenzweig, Spitz etcetera are some of the names that crop up in the plans and in the Business directories of the time. According to Jaffee (2001) Jews from all over the world but especially from Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland made Johannesburg and Newtown their home and made their fortune as traders, wholesale merchants, grain brokers, commissioning agents and many other trades. Several of them were the first Randlords - Alfred Beit, Lionel Phillips, Barney Barnato, Solly Joel, George and Leopold Albu, Max Michaelis, and Sammy Marks. There were not only Jewish immigrants in Newtown but also German speaking eastern European immigrants, Afrikaners and Black immigrants from rural South Africa as well as other Southern African countries. Business in Newtown was brisk and deals could be brokered over the telephone or in the streets in those days “…a man’s word was his bond.”
“Life in Newtown was very busy and competitive, it was very easy to start a business but difficult to stay afloat and make a profit. Newtown became a little sub-culture with its own jokes and special events. Business people who had worked and become successful in Newtown were awarded the fictitious ‘University of Newtown’ certificate given to all the entrepreneurs and millers who learned the trade on the job.
Newtown in the early 1920s was a place where there was bustling trade but also a place where wives of the emerging businessmen and affluent were never brought. Streets were dusty and a mixture of horse manure, smoke and effluent made the smell quite unpleasant. According to Jaffee (2001), “…it was not uncommon to see people walking around with handkerchiefs around over their mouths.” Notwithstanding that Newtown grew to be an area that served not only the city but also the entire Witwatersrand region.”
Have a good weekend, regards neil
Friday, May 9, 2008
Newtown Citichat 9 May 2008
CITICHAT 18/2008 - 9 May 2008
A Newtown Meander
After my mention of the NUMSA development in Newtown last week, I decided to spend some time in that part of the city to update myself. This is what I saw and learned.
Driving over the Nelson Mandela Bridge one is immediately aware of the Metro Mall to the left, the Brickfields development and the old Park Station on the right. The open area directly to the north of Metro Mall is covered in hundreds of combi-taxis. Metro Mall was built to provide ranking facilities for 2500 taxis as well as an informal trading market and, by all accounts, is working very well. I think that the design was done at a time when there were about 2 000 taxis on the ground in the vicinity, but today the rank is full and we still have hundreds ranking outside! I’m not sure if the proposed International Transport and Shopping Centre (ITSC) is going to provide relief as I understand that it will cater more for long term transportation, but we certainly need to find a solution. The very first phase of the ITSC, the demolition of part of the old Kazerne Parking garages, was commenced some months ago but was subsequently stopped by Council who have changed direction in regard to financing. My latest information is that this huge project will be put out as a PPP. With the current economic climate, one wonders whether this will be viable and it certainly looks as though it is not going to be even partly in operation for 2010!
Bottom of the NM bridge and we turn west into Carr Street. Johannesburg Housing Company’s good looking Brickfields and Phumulani Gardens residential developments on the left provide a total of 523 units. The old Park Station building on the right, on its heavy reinforced concrete platform, now looks down on an area where would-be truck drivers practice their parking and reversing skills. This area is reflected on the spatial development framework as divided into three sections, the western and eastern ‘thirds’ will have residential developments at some stage and the remaining central ‘third’ will be a park – yaaaay for green space! In regard to the old Park Station building itself, the Inner City Charter states, under a heading of ‘Iconic Public Buildings’ that “Through the leadership of various stakeholders, feasibility and business plans for the development of a number of other key iconic public place projects will be finalized by March 2008. These may include the Old Park Station……” Well, I guess ‘may’ also means ‘may not’ – I certainly haven’t heard any definite plans for this beautiful old structure and we’re into May.
At the corner of Carr and Miriam Makeba Streets, some guys up ladders are wiring CCTV cameras as part of the city-wide roll out of the CCTV blanket over the inner city. That’s certainly good news. Continuing to head west along Carr, on the left are a number of old warehouses, now mostly empty and ringed with barbed wire. They are soon to be redeveloped as a large mixed use complex by Atterbury Property whom, I understand, are currently finalizing the design and hope to be on site before the end of this year. Atterbury, apart from numerous developments nationally, have a number of successful inner city developments under their belt including the Mapungubwe.Hotel and Apartments and College House in Braamfontein. The former was done with Circlevest Properties and the two companies also developed the 112 residential unit ‘Isibaya House’ with ground floor retail on the corner of Marshall and Simmonds Streets. Back to Newtown!
Next to the proposed Atterbury development is Price Candles’ large facility. This company has a very interesting history. It was originally founded in 1830 in Battersea, UK, but as the two founders, Wilson and Lancaster, didn’t want their names to be associated with an industry as ‘vulgar’ as candle-making, they called the company “E. Price’s and Company” after a distant aunt on Lancaster’s side (probably someone they didn’t like!). They hit the jackpot in 1840 when there was a huge upsurge in the demand for cheap, good candles at the time of the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In the 1870s paraffin, which is an extract from petroleum, became the most important material for candle making. So, by the turn of the century the company was jointly owned by Shell, BP, Burma Oil and Unilever. In 1909 the company bought a candle factory in Cape Town and, a year later, built the building in Newtown which was extended to its current size in 1923. Shell South Africa bought the business in 1984 but closed down its South African operations in 2001 with the exception of the Newtown facility. In 2002 it was taken over by Sasol Wax.
Past Quinn Street and the refurbished Premier Milling office building on the eastern corner and, on the western corner, another ex-Premier building being refurbished. Still in Carr Street, one then comes to a massive industrial building where recycling is done by a company called ‘Remade’. I understand that they recycle just about anything - glass, paper, plastic, tin, etc - they pay cash for the waste that is brought to them on a weight basis. The company was started by a Mr Steve Benjamin in 1987 at which time he was unemployed and needed to make a living. With a borrowed bakkie and a weekly turnover of R80.00 the business has grown into a corporation with an annual turnover of R40 million rand. This is affirmative action for real and one that targets to profit disadvantaged people. “We put money into the hands of desperate, unemployed people at ground level but also provide opportunity to these same people to advance to the level where they can run a processing plant as an owner manager.” We talk so much about affirmative action, recycling and providing employment that it is just great to see it all happening on a sustainable and substantial scale in the inner city! Next door to their building is a structure that has been partly demolished but there is no clue as to what is proposed unless this is to form part of the residential development called ‘The Sidings’. ‘The Sidings’ will provide 440 residential units and is directly to the rear of “The Newtown” another refurbished Premier Milling office block at 37 Quinn Street but which is now residential with 30 apartments and 7 penthouses.
At the eastern end of the two-way section of Carr Street one comes to the western edge of Newtown or, maybe it is more Fordsburg than Newtown! This is Malherbe Street which runs north-south and, where it intersects with Bree Street, there is some really fine old Johannesburg architecture. The section of Bree Street that takes you back east towards the city centre is a very busy mixed - use street with shops, retail and wholesale, garages and panel shops, ‘seed and feed’ warehouses and some residential thrown in for good measure. As a result this is a lively stretch of street. On the northwest corner of Bree and Quinn Streets, a large refurbishment of a group of fascinating old buildings is underway. They are being turned into a mixed use development of 3 600 square metres to be known as ‘Newtown Quarter’ with office and warehouse space plus retail. This looks like a really classy development blending the old facades into a modern facility – Urban Solutions are the architects and they have been involved in a great deal of refurbishment in this area. The project has a courtyard and will be ideal for various types of eating establishments. It will substantially and positively impact on the area.
Between Carr and Bree Streets is Gwigwi Mrwebi Street, previously known as Pim Street. It appears to run into a dead end when it abruptly hits into the Afrika Cultural Centre but, in fact, picks up again on the other side of the Museum Afrika/Market Theatre complex from Miriam Makeba Street going east. One senses that this is emerging as a really important street in Newtown and it would be of value to call the two sections Gwigwi Mrwebi Street West and East for easier identification. The western section contains an eclectic mix of buildings/businesses interspersed with some real historical architectural gems. One such has a gable stating “Jan Owers Buildings 1913”. It now houses a furniture business called ‘M2 Furniture’ that has beautifully restored the old buildings with its front rooms acting as showrooms for its furniture which are manufactured a couple of buildings to its west. It has a delightful courtyard and the owner told me that it was originally a grain building, as were many in the area. It is practically surrounded by fine old buildings probably of the same vintage but generally quite rundown although a number have recently been given facelifts. This section of the street also contains Carfax, the well known “warehouse/club/party/venue/gallery” that has become an institution in Joeys.
Just to its east Gwigwi Mrwebi Street ‘dead ends’ into Henry Nxumalo which is the road under the M1. The columns supporting the freeway above have been used as large canvases for some great street art. The old “Market Cold Storage Building” in Henry Nxumalo looks as though something is happening with it – someone has been busy exposing the reinforcing on the façade, or has it just spalled off over time? Jump over Museum Afrika into the courtyard of the Market Theatre precinct and some of the buildings on the east are slated for demolition (although I believe the facades will be retained) for a mixed use development called “The Majestic”. This has been on the cards for a long, long time but has been subject to all sorts of delays. I understand that these have now been cleared and the development will go out to proposal call, again, in the next few weeks.
Gwigwi Mrwebi (east) also offers a number of surprises. It forms the southern edge of JHC’s Brickfields/ Phumulani development which has a number of small shops facing onto the street that seem to be quite active. Directly opposite, to its south and on the corner of Gwigwi Mrwebi and Gerard Sekoto is the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa development that I mentioned last week. Had a chat to a NUMSA official who tells me that the development that I admired is in fact their Head Office building (on the corner of Jeppe and Gerard Sekoto). It is currently being extended all the way back to Gwigwi Mrwebi maintaining the detail design of the façade of the original building. The Union’s Moses Mayekiso Conference Centre is opposite the Head office and has been functioning since 2006. It is in fact the old Diggers Inn Hotel not the Newtown Hotel as I suggested last week. On the southern side of Jeppe Street, opposite the NUMSA office facility is a lovely old building that I think was once a bank and which is partly restored but empty – it has some magnificent art deco metalwork on the doors and windows.
Turbine Hall on Miriam Makeba Street is looking better and better as the contractors get to the end of their work whilst the extensions to Sci Bono, diagonally opposite, are making rapid progress after a long delay. Directly opposite Turbine Hall on the corner of Jeppe and Miriam Makeba Streets, a proposal for a twenty-plus storey residential building was disallowed by the heritage authorities and I see the site was out on proposal call, again, last week, together with various other ‘Central Place’ sites. ‘Again’ because all of these were substantially held up due to heritage considerations and are now being re-advertised for development. Next to the corner site is what was previously known as the Workers’ Library and Museum now re-emerging as the Workers Museum. The council are currently investing between two-and-a-half and three million rand in the refurbishment of this building as a site for migrant labour history in South Africa. The refurbishment encompasses the renovation of the workers’ compound and the installation of a permanent exhibition for the whole site including some of the adjacent cottages and selected quarters for domestic workers. These buildings form the northern edge of Newtown Park which is an unexpected spread of green space that once was the site of the massive cooling towers of the President Street Power Station. In fact, the Square is lined with interesting buildings, on the west is No 1 Central Place, home to Kaya FM and the Gauteng Tourism Authority, Bassline and the Dance Factory. To the south, Moving into Dance (which is going to be upgraded) the Blue IQ offices (which will make way for a new development) and Sci Bono. The Newtown Square is in really good nick and looks well cared for but has the unfortunate ‘graffiti sculpture’ comprising four upside down motorcar skeletons painted orange and held together by what looks like giant elastic bands. The Square wouldn’t miss its demise although some people might miss the repository it offers for rubbish! At the other extreme (of art!) there is a beautiful bronze statue of Brenda Fassie outside Bassline by Angus Taylor that really picks up the whimsy of “The Madonna of the Townships” who died exactly four years ago to the day! There is a passageway next to 1 Central Place that leads one back to Jeppe Street on its northern end and to President Street on its southern end. The latter takes you to the Bus Factory where the JDA have their offices which they are busy extending. At the northern end of the passageway is a large marble pavement memorial that celebrates some of South Africa’s greats in the jazz field including Chris McGregor, Hotep Idris Galeta, Miriam Makeba, Jonas Mosa, Ntemi Piliso, Basil ‘Manenburg’ Coetzee, Kippie Moeketsi, Zacks Nkosi and Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi.
Mary Fitzgerald Square will evidently be one of the ‘fan parks’ for 2010. To its west is the large Astor Cash and Carry, one of the meccas for cross border shopping along with the Oriental Plaza further to the west. Next to Astor is the derelict Transport House that, I believe, also following a protracted delay, is now on the move again.
Although its progress has certainly slowed down considerably over the past two years, Newtown is still a vibrant area with a great history and the projects that are now under construction, emerging or in the planning stages will provide a real boost to the precinct. It really is worth spending a couple of hours ‘trawling’ the area.
Ciao, neil
A Newtown Meander
After my mention of the NUMSA development in Newtown last week, I decided to spend some time in that part of the city to update myself. This is what I saw and learned.
Driving over the Nelson Mandela Bridge one is immediately aware of the Metro Mall to the left, the Brickfields development and the old Park Station on the right. The open area directly to the north of Metro Mall is covered in hundreds of combi-taxis. Metro Mall was built to provide ranking facilities for 2500 taxis as well as an informal trading market and, by all accounts, is working very well. I think that the design was done at a time when there were about 2 000 taxis on the ground in the vicinity, but today the rank is full and we still have hundreds ranking outside! I’m not sure if the proposed International Transport and Shopping Centre (ITSC) is going to provide relief as I understand that it will cater more for long term transportation, but we certainly need to find a solution. The very first phase of the ITSC, the demolition of part of the old Kazerne Parking garages, was commenced some months ago but was subsequently stopped by Council who have changed direction in regard to financing. My latest information is that this huge project will be put out as a PPP. With the current economic climate, one wonders whether this will be viable and it certainly looks as though it is not going to be even partly in operation for 2010!
Bottom of the NM bridge and we turn west into Carr Street. Johannesburg Housing Company’s good looking Brickfields and Phumulani Gardens residential developments on the left provide a total of 523 units. The old Park Station building on the right, on its heavy reinforced concrete platform, now looks down on an area where would-be truck drivers practice their parking and reversing skills. This area is reflected on the spatial development framework as divided into three sections, the western and eastern ‘thirds’ will have residential developments at some stage and the remaining central ‘third’ will be a park – yaaaay for green space! In regard to the old Park Station building itself, the Inner City Charter states, under a heading of ‘Iconic Public Buildings’ that “Through the leadership of various stakeholders, feasibility and business plans for the development of a number of other key iconic public place projects will be finalized by March 2008. These may include the Old Park Station……” Well, I guess ‘may’ also means ‘may not’ – I certainly haven’t heard any definite plans for this beautiful old structure and we’re into May.
At the corner of Carr and Miriam Makeba Streets, some guys up ladders are wiring CCTV cameras as part of the city-wide roll out of the CCTV blanket over the inner city. That’s certainly good news. Continuing to head west along Carr, on the left are a number of old warehouses, now mostly empty and ringed with barbed wire. They are soon to be redeveloped as a large mixed use complex by Atterbury Property whom, I understand, are currently finalizing the design and hope to be on site before the end of this year. Atterbury, apart from numerous developments nationally, have a number of successful inner city developments under their belt including the Mapungubwe.Hotel and Apartments and College House in Braamfontein. The former was done with Circlevest Properties and the two companies also developed the 112 residential unit ‘Isibaya House’ with ground floor retail on the corner of Marshall and Simmonds Streets. Back to Newtown!
Next to the proposed Atterbury development is Price Candles’ large facility. This company has a very interesting history. It was originally founded in 1830 in Battersea, UK, but as the two founders, Wilson and Lancaster, didn’t want their names to be associated with an industry as ‘vulgar’ as candle-making, they called the company “E. Price’s and Company” after a distant aunt on Lancaster’s side (probably someone they didn’t like!). They hit the jackpot in 1840 when there was a huge upsurge in the demand for cheap, good candles at the time of the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In the 1870s paraffin, which is an extract from petroleum, became the most important material for candle making. So, by the turn of the century the company was jointly owned by Shell, BP, Burma Oil and Unilever. In 1909 the company bought a candle factory in Cape Town and, a year later, built the building in Newtown which was extended to its current size in 1923. Shell South Africa bought the business in 1984 but closed down its South African operations in 2001 with the exception of the Newtown facility. In 2002 it was taken over by Sasol Wax.
Past Quinn Street and the refurbished Premier Milling office building on the eastern corner and, on the western corner, another ex-Premier building being refurbished. Still in Carr Street, one then comes to a massive industrial building where recycling is done by a company called ‘Remade’. I understand that they recycle just about anything - glass, paper, plastic, tin, etc - they pay cash for the waste that is brought to them on a weight basis. The company was started by a Mr Steve Benjamin in 1987 at which time he was unemployed and needed to make a living. With a borrowed bakkie and a weekly turnover of R80.00 the business has grown into a corporation with an annual turnover of R40 million rand. This is affirmative action for real and one that targets to profit disadvantaged people. “We put money into the hands of desperate, unemployed people at ground level but also provide opportunity to these same people to advance to the level where they can run a processing plant as an owner manager.” We talk so much about affirmative action, recycling and providing employment that it is just great to see it all happening on a sustainable and substantial scale in the inner city! Next door to their building is a structure that has been partly demolished but there is no clue as to what is proposed unless this is to form part of the residential development called ‘The Sidings’. ‘The Sidings’ will provide 440 residential units and is directly to the rear of “The Newtown” another refurbished Premier Milling office block at 37 Quinn Street but which is now residential with 30 apartments and 7 penthouses.
At the eastern end of the two-way section of Carr Street one comes to the western edge of Newtown or, maybe it is more Fordsburg than Newtown! This is Malherbe Street which runs north-south and, where it intersects with Bree Street, there is some really fine old Johannesburg architecture. The section of Bree Street that takes you back east towards the city centre is a very busy mixed - use street with shops, retail and wholesale, garages and panel shops, ‘seed and feed’ warehouses and some residential thrown in for good measure. As a result this is a lively stretch of street. On the northwest corner of Bree and Quinn Streets, a large refurbishment of a group of fascinating old buildings is underway. They are being turned into a mixed use development of 3 600 square metres to be known as ‘Newtown Quarter’ with office and warehouse space plus retail. This looks like a really classy development blending the old facades into a modern facility – Urban Solutions are the architects and they have been involved in a great deal of refurbishment in this area. The project has a courtyard and will be ideal for various types of eating establishments. It will substantially and positively impact on the area.
Between Carr and Bree Streets is Gwigwi Mrwebi Street, previously known as Pim Street. It appears to run into a dead end when it abruptly hits into the Afrika Cultural Centre but, in fact, picks up again on the other side of the Museum Afrika/Market Theatre complex from Miriam Makeba Street going east. One senses that this is emerging as a really important street in Newtown and it would be of value to call the two sections Gwigwi Mrwebi Street West and East for easier identification. The western section contains an eclectic mix of buildings/businesses interspersed with some real historical architectural gems. One such has a gable stating “Jan Owers Buildings 1913”. It now houses a furniture business called ‘M2 Furniture’ that has beautifully restored the old buildings with its front rooms acting as showrooms for its furniture which are manufactured a couple of buildings to its west. It has a delightful courtyard and the owner told me that it was originally a grain building, as were many in the area. It is practically surrounded by fine old buildings probably of the same vintage but generally quite rundown although a number have recently been given facelifts. This section of the street also contains Carfax, the well known “warehouse/club/party/venue/gallery” that has become an institution in Joeys.
Just to its east Gwigwi Mrwebi Street ‘dead ends’ into Henry Nxumalo which is the road under the M1. The columns supporting the freeway above have been used as large canvases for some great street art. The old “Market Cold Storage Building” in Henry Nxumalo looks as though something is happening with it – someone has been busy exposing the reinforcing on the façade, or has it just spalled off over time? Jump over Museum Afrika into the courtyard of the Market Theatre precinct and some of the buildings on the east are slated for demolition (although I believe the facades will be retained) for a mixed use development called “The Majestic”. This has been on the cards for a long, long time but has been subject to all sorts of delays. I understand that these have now been cleared and the development will go out to proposal call, again, in the next few weeks.
Gwigwi Mrwebi (east) also offers a number of surprises. It forms the southern edge of JHC’s Brickfields/ Phumulani development which has a number of small shops facing onto the street that seem to be quite active. Directly opposite, to its south and on the corner of Gwigwi Mrwebi and Gerard Sekoto is the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa development that I mentioned last week. Had a chat to a NUMSA official who tells me that the development that I admired is in fact their Head Office building (on the corner of Jeppe and Gerard Sekoto). It is currently being extended all the way back to Gwigwi Mrwebi maintaining the detail design of the façade of the original building. The Union’s Moses Mayekiso Conference Centre is opposite the Head office and has been functioning since 2006. It is in fact the old Diggers Inn Hotel not the Newtown Hotel as I suggested last week. On the southern side of Jeppe Street, opposite the NUMSA office facility is a lovely old building that I think was once a bank and which is partly restored but empty – it has some magnificent art deco metalwork on the doors and windows.
Turbine Hall on Miriam Makeba Street is looking better and better as the contractors get to the end of their work whilst the extensions to Sci Bono, diagonally opposite, are making rapid progress after a long delay. Directly opposite Turbine Hall on the corner of Jeppe and Miriam Makeba Streets, a proposal for a twenty-plus storey residential building was disallowed by the heritage authorities and I see the site was out on proposal call, again, last week, together with various other ‘Central Place’ sites. ‘Again’ because all of these were substantially held up due to heritage considerations and are now being re-advertised for development. Next to the corner site is what was previously known as the Workers’ Library and Museum now re-emerging as the Workers Museum. The council are currently investing between two-and-a-half and three million rand in the refurbishment of this building as a site for migrant labour history in South Africa. The refurbishment encompasses the renovation of the workers’ compound and the installation of a permanent exhibition for the whole site including some of the adjacent cottages and selected quarters for domestic workers. These buildings form the northern edge of Newtown Park which is an unexpected spread of green space that once was the site of the massive cooling towers of the President Street Power Station. In fact, the Square is lined with interesting buildings, on the west is No 1 Central Place, home to Kaya FM and the Gauteng Tourism Authority, Bassline and the Dance Factory. To the south, Moving into Dance (which is going to be upgraded) the Blue IQ offices (which will make way for a new development) and Sci Bono. The Newtown Square is in really good nick and looks well cared for but has the unfortunate ‘graffiti sculpture’ comprising four upside down motorcar skeletons painted orange and held together by what looks like giant elastic bands. The Square wouldn’t miss its demise although some people might miss the repository it offers for rubbish! At the other extreme (of art!) there is a beautiful bronze statue of Brenda Fassie outside Bassline by Angus Taylor that really picks up the whimsy of “The Madonna of the Townships” who died exactly four years ago to the day! There is a passageway next to 1 Central Place that leads one back to Jeppe Street on its northern end and to President Street on its southern end. The latter takes you to the Bus Factory where the JDA have their offices which they are busy extending. At the northern end of the passageway is a large marble pavement memorial that celebrates some of South Africa’s greats in the jazz field including Chris McGregor, Hotep Idris Galeta, Miriam Makeba, Jonas Mosa, Ntemi Piliso, Basil ‘Manenburg’ Coetzee, Kippie Moeketsi, Zacks Nkosi and Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi.
Mary Fitzgerald Square will evidently be one of the ‘fan parks’ for 2010. To its west is the large Astor Cash and Carry, one of the meccas for cross border shopping along with the Oriental Plaza further to the west. Next to Astor is the derelict Transport House that, I believe, also following a protracted delay, is now on the move again.
Although its progress has certainly slowed down considerably over the past two years, Newtown is still a vibrant area with a great history and the projects that are now under construction, emerging or in the planning stages will provide a real boost to the precinct. It really is worth spending a couple of hours ‘trawling’ the area.
Ciao, neil
Friday, May 2, 2008
History Likker 2 Citichat 2 May 2008
CITICHAT 17/2008 - 2 May 2008
History Likker 2
Liquor – the saga continues!
Just to mention, before picking up on the themes of the past few weeks, the fantastic refurbishment that is being done of the Newtown Hotel by NUMSA in Newtown. I understand that this is going to be a conference centre/meeting place for them and what a great job they are doing of restoring the building. There is something eminently satisfying about the trade union movement developing in Newtown, arguably the starting point of the wrong type of ‘urban renewal’ that took place in Newtown way back 1904. Chipkin (‘Joburg Style’) describes it as urban renewal “whereby black residents were progressively pushed further to the west onto acrid waste sites beyond the townlands, and newly concocted titles replaced old site names erased both from the map and from human consciousness.”
Over the past few weeks we’ve being looking at the themes of the three earlier Citichats, liquor, sex and entertainment, as being joint cornerstones, with gold, in the establishment and growth of the city itself..
What was missing from the story to now is the fact that beer, like gold, was actually here before the appearance of whites. Beer drinking was common throughout African society. Beer was brewed from grain, corn or fruit. The most common drink was made from sorghum or maize – known as utshwala (Nguni) or byalwa (Sotho). The final product, after a brewing period lasting from four to fourteen days, was a thick, pink coloured drink usually with a low alcohol content. Refreshing and rich in vitamins, it was a nourishing drink that the Zulu king Cetshwayo (in a hearing before the Native Laws and Customs Commission) described it as the “food of the Zulus; they drink it as the English drink coffee” – I’m sure he meant tea although maybe the British colonists were more into coffee! Admittedly there were stronger varieties of beer brewed from marula berries or leaves of prickly pears and even from honey. The brewers of beer were traditionally women, Naboth Mokgatle (‘The Autobiography of an Unknown South African’) says, “brewing from the days of my ancestors until today has been the occupation of women. Every woman in my tribe is expected to know how to brew good and nourishing beer.” Drinking beer, on the other hand, was strongly associated with manhood. An old Zulu saying ‘utshwala buqinisa umzimba” means ‘beer strengthens the body’. Paul la Haussse (‘Brewers, Beerhalls and Boycotts’) reflects that “Beer was also important at certain events because it helped to build friendly relations with other people. At weddings the beer party united the family members of marriage partners. Initiation, death and other important stages of life were associated with beer drinking. Beer drinkings played an important role in everyday life in rural communities.”
As with so many aspects related to the indigenous population, the white settlers did not agree! Utterances from a ‘government’ official of the time shows clearly how natural development in one culture can be twisted through the world-view of another - “beer-drinkings are a curse to the country. Little children have as great a craving for the drink as the grown-up people. Women neglect their ordinary duties and leave their huts, to go routing about the country to these beer-drinkings, and they even use the drink to wean their children.” The capitalists were even more critical because they saw beer drinkings as negatively impacting on their profits: “these beer drinkings deprive the colony of its labour supply…” Interesting, when I was in Canada a few years back visiting a wonderful Aboriginal People’s Museum just outside Vancouver, I came across a photograph of a “potlatch”. (Wikipedia: “The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At these gatherings a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family's house and hold a feast for their guests. Celebration of births, rites of passages, weddings, funerals, namings, and honoring of the deceased are some of the many forms the potlatch occurs under.” Under the photograph, taken in 1914, was a caption containing the following comment by the ‘Indian Agent’ of Alert Bay, one William Halliday, made in 1918 “During these gatherings they lose months of time, waste their substance, contract all kinds of diseases and generally unfit themselves for being British subjects in the proper sense of the word.” One wonders if Mr Halliday would have called Cecil John Rhodes a ‘British subject in the proper sense of the word’ after reading Martin Meredith’s book “Diamonds Gold and War – the making of South Africa” Apologies, I wander! .
Citichat 13/2008 traced the establishment of the liquor industry in the old ZAR and how it was boosted dramatically through the mass mining of gold where mine owners “believed that alcohol could help them in their search for workers...when workers spent money on drink, they saved less, many of them forced to work for long periods on the mines before they had enough money to return to their rural homes. So liquor indirectly helped to lengthen periods of migrant labour”’ In just six years, by 1892, there were 552 canteens where workers could buy liquor but, by 1895, the mine owners feared that the liquor industry was ‘destroying their workers’ and thus their profits. By 1897 they had pressurized government to declare a new law - “from now on, no African could buy, sell or drink any kind of liquor on the Witwatersrand” – Prohibition in Johannesburg had begun! As in countries such as the USA where prohibition was applied (the difference of course being that it was applied in democratic fashion, to the whole population!), illegal sales of liquor now soared and enforcement was poor. It wasn’t until the aftermath of the Anglo Boer War that the illicit liquor traders were smashed by the British administration. Interesting that the mine owners were those who originally promoted liquor amongst workers to increase profits and were the same mine owners who later demanded prohibition – not for the good of their workers – but for the same reason in both cases, their profits!
Whilst, in the Transvaal, the answer to the ‘black drinking problem’ was Prohibition, in Natal, in 1908, another form of liquor control was developed which was through the establishment of the “beerhall” – a system whereby the authorities determined to control the entire course of the drink trade from brewing, through sales, and to the actual consumption of beer itself. The Natal Parliament thus passed the ‘Native Beer Act’ whereby only Town Councils could become the brewers and sellers of sorghum beer and beer drinking was confined to beerhalls. In one bit of legislation, the African drink trade was destroyed and a new way was found of exploiting black workers – all profits, which were considerable, would be used to build barracks for workers and contribute to the salaries of the police – all at no cost to the white taxpayer!
But, back to Joeys. By the 1920s tens of thousands of poor people had settled in and around the city drawn by the lure of gold – the rural poor who had lost their land through the Land Act of 1913, the boers who had lost their land in the Anglo Boer War and the migrant workers of which there were nearly 200 000 on the mines at this time, all living in compounds. Non-mine workers found jobs as domestic workers, storemen, washermen and general labourers. The area beyond the city limits to the west of Diagonal Street, known as ‘uitvalgrond’ attracted many of these people. In 1904 an ‘African settlement’ was established at Klipspruit near the main sewerage works to which thousands were forcibly removed whilst between 1905 and 1912 the townships of Sophiatown, Newclare and Alexandra were established. Then, of course, as to be repeated in Hillbrow, Berea, Yeoville, etc between the late ‘70s and ‘90s, owners of property in the inner city were quite prepared to rent land and houses to black tenants. Overcrowding took place by dint of sheer numbers with no available housing alternatives and the ‘rich whites’ moved to Parktown leaving poor people of all races to move into Doornfontein, Jeppe, Ferreirastown, etc. The ‘poor whites’ made money out of selling liquor illegally to their black neighbours. Families struggled to make ends meet and women, in particular, found it difficult to find jobs, so beer brewing and shebeens became an important part of the culture that developed in these areas. This culture became known as ‘Marabi’. Over weekends the ‘slum’ areas attracted thousands of workers who wanted entertainment and relaxation after a hard week’s work. Just as the rich were sipping aperitifs and watching the latest ‘show’ in the many opera and entertainment centres built in the central city area the poor were turning to shebeens for companionship and comfort.
Women started organizing the shebeens on a stokvel basis – every week the woman who got the stokvel pool organized a huge party – members and guests would pay an entrance fee and buy food and drink inside – one of the attractions of Marabi parties was the variety of brews concocted by the ladies! Peter Abrahams says that the stokvel was “…the trade union of the women who dealt in illicit liquor…often a well known ‘skokiaan’ queen was sent to prison without the option of a fine. In such cases the stokvel helped with the home and children till the member came out of jail.” And of course there was music, much, much music! Wilson “King Force” Silgee a saxophone player described the events “Marabi; that was the environment…. you get there, you pay your ten cents, you get your share of whatever concoction there is – and you dance. It used to start Friday night right through to Sunday evening. You get tired, you go home, go and sleep, and come back again, bob a time each time you get in. The piano with the audience making a lot of noise – trying to make some theme out of what is playing” This was the embryo and gestation period for South African jazz!
In 1923, Government passed the ‘Urban Areas Act’ which was planned to segregate white and black and to prevent black persons from buying land in the towns or even from coming to towns. And, war was declared on beer brewers! In 1933 police destroyed 568 000 gallons of beer. The brewers took to less traditional and quicker methods of brewing liquor – so was born skokiaan (either named after a scorpion’s sting or from the Afrikaans skok meaning ‘to shock’); isikilimiqiki (kill-me-quick); quedviki (kill-the-weekend) and se pa ba le masenke (stagger-on-the-fences)
Then, from 1937, the Natal beerhall model was introduced throughout the country – the authorities said it was to make the liquor laws more flexible. Municipalities were given three options (1) having a monopoly on beer making and selling or, (2) providing limited numbers of licences to previous black brewers to make and sell beer or, (3) allowing brewing at home. The municipalities, recognizing the huge profits to be made, generally chose (1). The beer monopoly system was fiercely criticised but as fiercely enforced – municipal beer was more expensive than drinking in shebeens but making beer or drinking outside of beerhalls was a criminal offence. Dr. A. B. Xuma (elected ANC President in 1940) said “When I see hundreds of black women going to jail every Monday, I do not think of them as criminals, I blame the system under which they live. It must be changed…. These laws for “natives only” are unexcelled anywhere in the world in their…manufacture of criminals.”
Profits from beerhalls, which were supposed to be used primarily for housing, could not keep pace with the exploding population particularly during 1939 to 1945 when tens of thousands flocked to Johannesburg to work in the factories producing goods for the war and the army. There were strikes regarding bad living conditions, squatters camps grew as did dissatisfaction with low wages, beerhalls and liquor raids. The beerhalls increasingly were seen as depriving women of earning a living from brewing and also as extorting money from low-paid male workers. Beerhalls were boycotted, often accompanied by violence bred from the anger and frustration against the system. The shebeen, ‘that noble institution’ (Nat Nakasa) although constantly targeted by the police, became the centre of township life. Drum writer, Can Themba, described “The Thirty Nine Steps” in Sophiatown: “Now, that was a great shebeen. It was in Good Street. You walked up a flight of steps, the structure looked dingy as if it would crash down with you any moment. You opened a door and walked into a dazzle of bright electric light, contemporary furniture, and massive Fatty. She was a legend. Gay, friendly, coquettish, always ready to sell you a drink. And that Mama had everything: whisky, brandy, gin, beer, wine - the lot”
The shebeens provided an atmosphere which contrasted with the rigours of daily life, they were warm and hospitable described by Nat Nakasa as ‘hospitable homes’ as compared to the beerhalls with their “high fences which give them the look of cages”. They were also sources of income. Bloke Modisane (Blame Me on History) recalls his mother in Sophiatown who turned “our house into a shebeen, worked ten hours a day brewing and pressing home-brew, called skokiaan and barbeton, and from the proceeds she educated me to high school level and the two girls to primary school level.” With constant raids, people had to find new ways to hide drink – Can Themba wrote “When a plumber’s job was completed, all the shebeen keeper had to do was turn on the hot water-tap for brandy and the cold-water for wine.”
If this sounds amusing and even quite romantic, it should be seen against the background in which it was increasingly taking place. New discriminatory policies and practices, pass law enforcement, residential segregation, segregated and skewed education and overall brutal enforcement that ultimately resulted in the shebeens of places such as Sophiatiown being bulldozed as part of the houses and shops and streets of which the township was comprised.
In 1960 a Commission of Enquiry into Intoxicating Liquor was held the outcome of which was an amendment to the liquor laws allowing wine and spirits to be available to the black population but through government-owned bottle stores. It was widely touted at the time that the major pressure for change came again from the ‘captains of industry’ – this time the producers of wine and spirits who were being denied access to a huge market! Profits from the government liquor stores were to be used predominantly for the provision of housing. Beerhalls would be retained and extended, upgraded. They were and thus became, with the liquor outlets, powerful symbols of repression and exploitation and, following June 1976, became the targets of militant youth. The only beerhall in the inner city that I know of but which, I think, exists as a structure only, is in Kwa Mai Mai, the Zulu market which started in the 1920s but was moved to its current location in 1940 when the beerhall was built.
Twelve years of democracy has not yet resolved the problems associated with liquor in the city. A Provincial publication of a year back highlighted the ‘shebeen problem’ as “a legacy of our apartheid past and cannot be allowed to linger on indefinitely. Unless an end is brought about to the untenable situation it will be impossible to implement a meaningful liquor policy…….the present state of lawlessness and chaos in the industry cannot be allowed to continue.”
From what I hear, it still does but it certainly is a fascinating side to our history.
So, cheers! neil
History Likker 2
Liquor – the saga continues!
Just to mention, before picking up on the themes of the past few weeks, the fantastic refurbishment that is being done of the Newtown Hotel by NUMSA in Newtown. I understand that this is going to be a conference centre/meeting place for them and what a great job they are doing of restoring the building. There is something eminently satisfying about the trade union movement developing in Newtown, arguably the starting point of the wrong type of ‘urban renewal’ that took place in Newtown way back 1904. Chipkin (‘Joburg Style’) describes it as urban renewal “whereby black residents were progressively pushed further to the west onto acrid waste sites beyond the townlands, and newly concocted titles replaced old site names erased both from the map and from human consciousness.”
Over the past few weeks we’ve being looking at the themes of the three earlier Citichats, liquor, sex and entertainment, as being joint cornerstones, with gold, in the establishment and growth of the city itself..
What was missing from the story to now is the fact that beer, like gold, was actually here before the appearance of whites. Beer drinking was common throughout African society. Beer was brewed from grain, corn or fruit. The most common drink was made from sorghum or maize – known as utshwala (Nguni) or byalwa (Sotho). The final product, after a brewing period lasting from four to fourteen days, was a thick, pink coloured drink usually with a low alcohol content. Refreshing and rich in vitamins, it was a nourishing drink that the Zulu king Cetshwayo (in a hearing before the Native Laws and Customs Commission) described it as the “food of the Zulus; they drink it as the English drink coffee” – I’m sure he meant tea although maybe the British colonists were more into coffee! Admittedly there were stronger varieties of beer brewed from marula berries or leaves of prickly pears and even from honey. The brewers of beer were traditionally women, Naboth Mokgatle (‘The Autobiography of an Unknown South African’) says, “brewing from the days of my ancestors until today has been the occupation of women. Every woman in my tribe is expected to know how to brew good and nourishing beer.” Drinking beer, on the other hand, was strongly associated with manhood. An old Zulu saying ‘utshwala buqinisa umzimba” means ‘beer strengthens the body’. Paul la Haussse (‘Brewers, Beerhalls and Boycotts’) reflects that “Beer was also important at certain events because it helped to build friendly relations with other people. At weddings the beer party united the family members of marriage partners. Initiation, death and other important stages of life were associated with beer drinking. Beer drinkings played an important role in everyday life in rural communities.”
As with so many aspects related to the indigenous population, the white settlers did not agree! Utterances from a ‘government’ official of the time shows clearly how natural development in one culture can be twisted through the world-view of another - “beer-drinkings are a curse to the country. Little children have as great a craving for the drink as the grown-up people. Women neglect their ordinary duties and leave their huts, to go routing about the country to these beer-drinkings, and they even use the drink to wean their children.” The capitalists were even more critical because they saw beer drinkings as negatively impacting on their profits: “these beer drinkings deprive the colony of its labour supply…” Interesting, when I was in Canada a few years back visiting a wonderful Aboriginal People’s Museum just outside Vancouver, I came across a photograph of a “potlatch”. (Wikipedia: “The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At these gatherings a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family's house and hold a feast for their guests. Celebration of births, rites of passages, weddings, funerals, namings, and honoring of the deceased are some of the many forms the potlatch occurs under.” Under the photograph, taken in 1914, was a caption containing the following comment by the ‘Indian Agent’ of Alert Bay, one William Halliday, made in 1918 “During these gatherings they lose months of time, waste their substance, contract all kinds of diseases and generally unfit themselves for being British subjects in the proper sense of the word.” One wonders if Mr Halliday would have called Cecil John Rhodes a ‘British subject in the proper sense of the word’ after reading Martin Meredith’s book “Diamonds Gold and War – the making of South Africa” Apologies, I wander! .
Citichat 13/2008 traced the establishment of the liquor industry in the old ZAR and how it was boosted dramatically through the mass mining of gold where mine owners “believed that alcohol could help them in their search for workers...when workers spent money on drink, they saved less, many of them forced to work for long periods on the mines before they had enough money to return to their rural homes. So liquor indirectly helped to lengthen periods of migrant labour”’ In just six years, by 1892, there were 552 canteens where workers could buy liquor but, by 1895, the mine owners feared that the liquor industry was ‘destroying their workers’ and thus their profits. By 1897 they had pressurized government to declare a new law - “from now on, no African could buy, sell or drink any kind of liquor on the Witwatersrand” – Prohibition in Johannesburg had begun! As in countries such as the USA where prohibition was applied (the difference of course being that it was applied in democratic fashion, to the whole population!), illegal sales of liquor now soared and enforcement was poor. It wasn’t until the aftermath of the Anglo Boer War that the illicit liquor traders were smashed by the British administration. Interesting that the mine owners were those who originally promoted liquor amongst workers to increase profits and were the same mine owners who later demanded prohibition – not for the good of their workers – but for the same reason in both cases, their profits!
Whilst, in the Transvaal, the answer to the ‘black drinking problem’ was Prohibition, in Natal, in 1908, another form of liquor control was developed which was through the establishment of the “beerhall” – a system whereby the authorities determined to control the entire course of the drink trade from brewing, through sales, and to the actual consumption of beer itself. The Natal Parliament thus passed the ‘Native Beer Act’ whereby only Town Councils could become the brewers and sellers of sorghum beer and beer drinking was confined to beerhalls. In one bit of legislation, the African drink trade was destroyed and a new way was found of exploiting black workers – all profits, which were considerable, would be used to build barracks for workers and contribute to the salaries of the police – all at no cost to the white taxpayer!
But, back to Joeys. By the 1920s tens of thousands of poor people had settled in and around the city drawn by the lure of gold – the rural poor who had lost their land through the Land Act of 1913, the boers who had lost their land in the Anglo Boer War and the migrant workers of which there were nearly 200 000 on the mines at this time, all living in compounds. Non-mine workers found jobs as domestic workers, storemen, washermen and general labourers. The area beyond the city limits to the west of Diagonal Street, known as ‘uitvalgrond’ attracted many of these people. In 1904 an ‘African settlement’ was established at Klipspruit near the main sewerage works to which thousands were forcibly removed whilst between 1905 and 1912 the townships of Sophiatown, Newclare and Alexandra were established. Then, of course, as to be repeated in Hillbrow, Berea, Yeoville, etc between the late ‘70s and ‘90s, owners of property in the inner city were quite prepared to rent land and houses to black tenants. Overcrowding took place by dint of sheer numbers with no available housing alternatives and the ‘rich whites’ moved to Parktown leaving poor people of all races to move into Doornfontein, Jeppe, Ferreirastown, etc. The ‘poor whites’ made money out of selling liquor illegally to their black neighbours. Families struggled to make ends meet and women, in particular, found it difficult to find jobs, so beer brewing and shebeens became an important part of the culture that developed in these areas. This culture became known as ‘Marabi’. Over weekends the ‘slum’ areas attracted thousands of workers who wanted entertainment and relaxation after a hard week’s work. Just as the rich were sipping aperitifs and watching the latest ‘show’ in the many opera and entertainment centres built in the central city area the poor were turning to shebeens for companionship and comfort.
Women started organizing the shebeens on a stokvel basis – every week the woman who got the stokvel pool organized a huge party – members and guests would pay an entrance fee and buy food and drink inside – one of the attractions of Marabi parties was the variety of brews concocted by the ladies! Peter Abrahams says that the stokvel was “…the trade union of the women who dealt in illicit liquor…often a well known ‘skokiaan’ queen was sent to prison without the option of a fine. In such cases the stokvel helped with the home and children till the member came out of jail.” And of course there was music, much, much music! Wilson “King Force” Silgee a saxophone player described the events “Marabi; that was the environment…. you get there, you pay your ten cents, you get your share of whatever concoction there is – and you dance. It used to start Friday night right through to Sunday evening. You get tired, you go home, go and sleep, and come back again, bob a time each time you get in. The piano with the audience making a lot of noise – trying to make some theme out of what is playing” This was the embryo and gestation period for South African jazz!
In 1923, Government passed the ‘Urban Areas Act’ which was planned to segregate white and black and to prevent black persons from buying land in the towns or even from coming to towns. And, war was declared on beer brewers! In 1933 police destroyed 568 000 gallons of beer. The brewers took to less traditional and quicker methods of brewing liquor – so was born skokiaan (either named after a scorpion’s sting or from the Afrikaans skok meaning ‘to shock’); isikilimiqiki (kill-me-quick); quedviki (kill-the-weekend) and se pa ba le masenke (stagger-on-the-fences)
Then, from 1937, the Natal beerhall model was introduced throughout the country – the authorities said it was to make the liquor laws more flexible. Municipalities were given three options (1) having a monopoly on beer making and selling or, (2) providing limited numbers of licences to previous black brewers to make and sell beer or, (3) allowing brewing at home. The municipalities, recognizing the huge profits to be made, generally chose (1). The beer monopoly system was fiercely criticised but as fiercely enforced – municipal beer was more expensive than drinking in shebeens but making beer or drinking outside of beerhalls was a criminal offence. Dr. A. B. Xuma (elected ANC President in 1940) said “When I see hundreds of black women going to jail every Monday, I do not think of them as criminals, I blame the system under which they live. It must be changed…. These laws for “natives only” are unexcelled anywhere in the world in their…manufacture of criminals.”
Profits from beerhalls, which were supposed to be used primarily for housing, could not keep pace with the exploding population particularly during 1939 to 1945 when tens of thousands flocked to Johannesburg to work in the factories producing goods for the war and the army. There were strikes regarding bad living conditions, squatters camps grew as did dissatisfaction with low wages, beerhalls and liquor raids. The beerhalls increasingly were seen as depriving women of earning a living from brewing and also as extorting money from low-paid male workers. Beerhalls were boycotted, often accompanied by violence bred from the anger and frustration against the system. The shebeen, ‘that noble institution’ (Nat Nakasa) although constantly targeted by the police, became the centre of township life. Drum writer, Can Themba, described “The Thirty Nine Steps” in Sophiatown: “Now, that was a great shebeen. It was in Good Street. You walked up a flight of steps, the structure looked dingy as if it would crash down with you any moment. You opened a door and walked into a dazzle of bright electric light, contemporary furniture, and massive Fatty. She was a legend. Gay, friendly, coquettish, always ready to sell you a drink. And that Mama had everything: whisky, brandy, gin, beer, wine - the lot”
The shebeens provided an atmosphere which contrasted with the rigours of daily life, they were warm and hospitable described by Nat Nakasa as ‘hospitable homes’ as compared to the beerhalls with their “high fences which give them the look of cages”. They were also sources of income. Bloke Modisane (Blame Me on History) recalls his mother in Sophiatown who turned “our house into a shebeen, worked ten hours a day brewing and pressing home-brew, called skokiaan and barbeton, and from the proceeds she educated me to high school level and the two girls to primary school level.” With constant raids, people had to find new ways to hide drink – Can Themba wrote “When a plumber’s job was completed, all the shebeen keeper had to do was turn on the hot water-tap for brandy and the cold-water for wine.”
If this sounds amusing and even quite romantic, it should be seen against the background in which it was increasingly taking place. New discriminatory policies and practices, pass law enforcement, residential segregation, segregated and skewed education and overall brutal enforcement that ultimately resulted in the shebeens of places such as Sophiatiown being bulldozed as part of the houses and shops and streets of which the township was comprised.
In 1960 a Commission of Enquiry into Intoxicating Liquor was held the outcome of which was an amendment to the liquor laws allowing wine and spirits to be available to the black population but through government-owned bottle stores. It was widely touted at the time that the major pressure for change came again from the ‘captains of industry’ – this time the producers of wine and spirits who were being denied access to a huge market! Profits from the government liquor stores were to be used predominantly for the provision of housing. Beerhalls would be retained and extended, upgraded. They were and thus became, with the liquor outlets, powerful symbols of repression and exploitation and, following June 1976, became the targets of militant youth. The only beerhall in the inner city that I know of but which, I think, exists as a structure only, is in Kwa Mai Mai, the Zulu market which started in the 1920s but was moved to its current location in 1940 when the beerhall was built.
Twelve years of democracy has not yet resolved the problems associated with liquor in the city. A Provincial publication of a year back highlighted the ‘shebeen problem’ as “a legacy of our apartheid past and cannot be allowed to linger on indefinitely. Unless an end is brought about to the untenable situation it will be impossible to implement a meaningful liquor policy…….the present state of lawlessness and chaos in the industry cannot be allowed to continue.”
From what I hear, it still does but it certainly is a fascinating side to our history.
So, cheers! neil
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