Showing posts with label First Station. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Station. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

When is a deck a boardwalk?

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Can this long wooden walkway qualify as a "boardwalk"?
Hope so, because I need a B word for today's ABC Wednesday.
This was my first time to see Jerusalem's cultural and entertainment venue, the First Station.
I was last there in 2013 when the old heritage site train station was being re-done, so my construction photos are now history.
Just look at all those carts!
I walked through at 2:30, returning from the nearby International Book Fair, and nothing much was open yet, except the restaurants.


The rough-hewn wood of the selling carts is meant to evoke the memory of old-time luggage carts for the train passengers back in the 19th century.
The journey up to Jerusalem with the coal-burning locomotives is one I would love to have made back then, when this was still part of the Ottoman Empire.
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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The First Station (of the train, not of the Cross)

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While over at Hels' excellent "Art and Architecture, mainly" blog,  I learned a lot from her post "Saving an Ottoman-era railway station in Jerusalem."

It made me realize that I still need to show you my last photos of the work in progress, back in April.
Later in the spring the First Station was opened to the public as an entertainment and cultural venue, so now my pictures are history. 


The end of the line!
Built in the 19th century, the rail line from Jaffa on the coast ended here in Jerusalem's German Colony.


Looking in the other direction, you see the actual rails don't extend very far anymore.
The were covered over in nice wood and bricks and made into a  bike + walkers' path extending for miles. 


 The venerable old train station was saved from the decay that had begun when this rail line to Jerusalem was closed in 1998. 
(Today the Israel Rail again reaches Jerusalem, but ends at a new modern and ugly station.)

The day I passed by, the workers were building a big wooden deck for the expected visitors to the new venue.
Enlarge the photo to see the cute "luggage wagons" soon to be kiosks.


Rebar was laid before concrete was pored.


A fancy fence, a sign of things to come.
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For background of the station and the railroad you can see my 2011 post "Shadows and decaying elegance."
And for a laugh, see the misspelled traffic sign that briefly hung at the end of the tracks until it was discovered by bloggers and newspapermen and became a laughing stock.

All about the new "Place for food and culture"  at their website, http://www.firststation.co.il/en/.
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