Time Marches On…

August 24, 2006 - 11:33 PM by Allison

After thinking it over, Brian Blum decides not to join a protest against the construction of a luxury hotel in his neighborhood.Sometimes, he says, you have to let progress take its course:

Let’s be honest: were the “good old days” that much better? Would we really want to go back to a “simpler time” when it took four years to get a phone line, there was only one TV station (and it was in black and white) and customer service – despite whatever complaints I may have about it today – wasn’t even an entry in the Hebrew cultural dictionary?

Back then, your choice of where to eat in the German Colony was limited to a single café, the venerable Caffit. Ha’aretz newspaper now counts 42 fast and not so fast food establishments in the area today including what has to be one of the most elegant settings for a Big Mac in the world: a McDonald’s housed in a historic building faced with elegant Jerusalem Stone.

Looking for nightlife in 1986? Try Tel Aviv.

We also “get used to” things. The Transamerica Pyramid and the Golden Gate Bridge, two of the most striking visual images in San Francisco where I grew up, were both initially opposed as being hideously ugly and “out of proportion” too. In Jerusalem it’s hard to imagine we’ll ever get used to the monstrous Holyland apartment complex overlooking the Malcha Mall area…but we will. The same will be the case for the hotels at the entrance to the German Colony, I imagine.

So does that mean I support construction wherever and whenever in the city? Not at all. I think that the proposal from twenty years ago that called for a smaller hotel, more in keeping with the proportions of the neighborhood, would be a reasonable compromise.

Can we get there?

Well, that’s something else I learned growing up: you can’t turn the clock back, but you can move forward with dialogue and respect, integrating old and new with intelligence and creativity. It shouldn’t be impossible to preserve the small town feel of the German Colony neighborhood while still giving tourists a luxurious place to bed down on their way to pick up some Asian stir-fry in a baguette or a cornflake-fried schnitzel sandwich with pesto and garlic sauce.

It won’t be easy, but I’m confident we can find common ground and foster tolerance and moderation in all things…yes, even development.

Now that would be something worth rallying about.

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