Nostalgia Sunday – Kikar Atarim: What’s up with that?

December 27, 2009 - 6:48 PM by Rachel Neiman · 2 Comments
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Travel 

kikar atarim barI have family visiting Israel this week and they are staying at a very nice hotel in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, like most of the nice hotels in Tel Aviv, theirs is located adjacent to a local embarrassment known as Kikar Atarim (Atarim Square, also known as Namir Square). And like most visitors, they are curious as to the origins of this concrete and stone monstrosity whose sole purpose seems to be to block the view and the route to the sea. Oh, and to serve as a giant pissoir.

Google the phrase “kikar atarim” and what you’ll get is a series of items terming it everything from “the single most disappointing and embarrassing tourist attraction in the city” and “[a] prime example[s] of what can kindly be called ‘errors in urban planning’” to “a colossal failure”, “concrete atrocity” and “something I crawled over and got away from as quickly as I could.”

In her Haaretz article, A white elephant from outer space in the heart of Tel Aviv, author Shani Shilo relates that during the first Gulf War, then-Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo (Cheech) Lahat “remarked that he hoped an Iraqi missile would land on Atarim Square and destroy the thing.” I had it on my Saddam Hussein wish list as well.

The square, built on a cliff leading down to the sea, was designed as a multifunctional structure and tourist attraction by one of Israel’s most dominant architects, Yacov Rechter, as a prime example of Brutalist architecture in Israel. When it opened in the early 1970s, it was very successful for a time: the Kolbo Shalom department store had a branch called “The Drugstore,” modeled after Le Drugstore, (a famous Parisian 60s hangout); people flocked to the Shahaf Cinema and sat in cafes under the concrete mushrooms. Here’s a lovely picture (above) of screenwriter Moshe (Pommy) Hadar and his wife Bella Levin in front of Drugstore Shalom.

In 1978, the municipality changed the name of the square to honor the late Mordechai Namir, who was mayor from 1959 to 1969. But the square had already begun a downwards spiral from which it has yet to emerge.

Tel Aviv lore has it that Kikar Atarim is a sort of No Man’s Land run by shadowy underworld types who take astronomical amounts in protection fees, thus preventing any businesses from being able to sustain, let alone flourish. And, according to Wikipedia (in Hebrew), this is probably true: “Towards the end of the Seventies, it changed entirely. Criminal elements took over the shops and a police station was established on the premises, the stores on the lower levels closed or were turned into gambling clubs. The Kolbo Shalom branch closed and the round structure stood abandoned for a number of years.”

And then, in 1982, Kikar Atarim experienced a sort of revival when the round structure was turned into a disco called the Coliseum (sic). Grace Jones, pop’s original and true diva, performed at the club opening and for years it was the place to go, see, be seen and get picked up. The surrounding area, however, continued to deteriorate to the point that Ora Namir, Ambassador, MK and widow of Mordechai Namir – and no slouch when it came to PR – requested that the municipality disassociate her late husband’s name from the place. And that, children, is how Haifa Road came to be know as Namir Road.

And then came the early Nineties and Mayor Lahat’s pronouncement, so reminiscent of the cry raised by the residents of St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing complex when asked what action could make their residence habitable. They chanted, “Blow it … up! Blow it … up!”. (The authorities complied).

Unfortunately, the Tel Aviv municipality in 2009 has it harder than that of St. Louis in 1971, mainly because of Kikar Atarim’s umpteen property owners and their descendants who, according to Wikipedia, “are not able to cooperate in maintaining the square. Unlike the malls, the square has no maintenance company and essentially there is no entity that manages or maintains it. The cheap construction materials from which it was built, along with its proximity to the sea, contribute to its accelerated deterioration.”

In 2006, the municipality announced that it would not knock down Kikar Atarim and would redo it instead. Apparently, the repairs were only structural so I put in a couple of nice pictures of that dream. Believe me, it’s now a few days shy of 2010, I just spent a weekend walking and running in, out and round about Kikar Atarim, and the only thing that’s changed is that a few new layers of urine have been added to the stairwells.

The good news is that the Coliseum just reopened! It can no longer lay claim to the title, “The Biggest Disco in the Middle East,” but the refurbishment is nice. Too bad about the neighborhood.
Coliseum club Tel Aviv

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Waiting for Paul

September 25, 2008 - 7:33 AM by David · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Music, Pop Culture 

paul ta.jpgWhen I arrived at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning, I didn’t expect to see hordes of teenage girls outside waving banners saying “I Luv Paul”. But I did think there would be some indication that the most successful musician of all time – former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney – was upstairs in the hotel’s 5th floor Presidential suite, possible in golden slumber.

Aside from the usually posted guard asking me who I was going to see (“meeting a friend staying at the hotel, sir”), there didn’t seem to be any extra security, as I sidled in, and scoped out the scene. I knew there was supposed to be a photo opportunity with Paul at 11:30, to which all journalists had been disinivited. There weren’t going to be any questions allowed, and all the photographers had been told not to say anything to the man.

But since I had to be in Tel Aviv anyway, I decided to crash the party and catch my first glimpse of a Beatle in the flesh (assuming that Paul didn’t die in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike imposter).

I easily found the corner of the hotel set aside for the photo op, because there were a lot of poorly dressed guys (about 30) with big cameras and loud voices hanging out. I had the camera in my Samsung cell phone, and I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, so I fit right in.

Fortunately, there were a couple other crashers who I knew – Israel Radio’s music correspondent Benny Dudkevitch, who knows more about pop music than most humans, Yoav Kutner, the country’s pre-eminent Beatle expert and music director of Radio Tel Aviv, and rock singer Danny Robas, who has a second career performing Beatles music. Like me, they just wanted to see Paul, and soak in the fact that, for the first time, a Beatle was in Israel and playing a show (Thurs. night at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv). We traded some stories, rumors and excitement.

Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, Paul didn’t show, and they kept delaying his arrival from his suite. Another 20 minutes, than an hour delay, and then the Israeli PR people were afraid to return and give an ETA fearing the, by now, ornery photographers would start using their cameras as weapons. These guys aren’t the most polite bunch to begin with, and their comments about McCartney can’t be repeated here.

Pitchers of juice and trays of apple strudel courtesy of the hotel did little to ease their moods, and when McCartney finally descended almost three and a half hours after schedule, there was no reason to caution them again not to talk to him. They would have spurned him anyway.

Like a surreal silent movie, they snapped away, Paul stayed silent, except mumbling something about a story I had written in that day’s Jerusalem Post about the ‘Paul is dead’ myth, and then he walked away surrounded by flunkies and bodyguards.

I took a couple pix with my cell phone, but mostly I just did what I had intended to do – looked at Paul, remembered seeing him on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and watching the Beatles through all their developmental phases which helped form who I am, and affected the music I still listen to.

He left the hotel, and finally, I saw a dozen or so fans surround him. He politely signed autographs before getting into a car and taking off for a tour of Bethlehem. Fans surrounded the car, a couple banging on the hood and windows and saying “I Love You Paul.”

It was reassuring to discover that Beatlemania in Israel still exists.

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