A windmill in Jerusalem

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The sky is dreary and dull today, not great for SkyWatch Friday.
What is jutting INTO the sky is more interesting: a 135-year-old windmill!
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Before the Jerusalem neighborhood of Rehavia was built in the 1920s, the area was owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and was called Jinzeriah.
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The Church built this windmill around 1875 to grind the local grain crops.
It even had a petrol engine for when the wind died down. This made it superior, in theory, to the other windmill built by Montefiore in Mishkenot Sha'ananim not far away.
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Later, following the Russian revolution, the Greek Orthodox Church was nearing bankruptcy and had to sell the fields to the Palestine Land Development Company.
This (along with the new steam mill technology) put the windmill out of business.
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Then, as the Jerusalem Step by Step guidebooks says,
"[The windmill] remained inactive for years and the children of Rehavia used the opportunity to remove the cross from the top of the structure."
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A famous Jewish architect bought the windmill and lived in it from 1935 to 1941.

His study was just under the dome. How cool is that?!

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Appropriately enough, in the 1950s and 60s the structure housed the Dutch consulate and the consul's residence.

After that, it again stood empty until 1987 when it was converted into a small, exclusive shopping center.

The contractors had wanted to build a residential building instead, but thankfully, the Jerusalem Municipality had the sense to say NO. Thus the windmill was restored and is preserved.

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