Through a glass elevator, brightly

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Deep reflections in the floor of the elevator, for Weekend Reflections, had an almost dizzying effect as we went up.

But looking through the glass elevator, down onto Zion Square, was even more exciting.

You can see where the Ben-Yehuda Street pedestrian mall begins at Zion Square, corner of Jaffa Street.
The decorated parked car belongs to the joyful NaNach Jews, and the yellow bloodmobile waits for your blood donation.

Enlarge the photo and see the tram.
The light rail is now the only vehicle allowed in this part of Jaffa St., making it too a kind of pedestrian mall.

Here is a wider view (again, from the elevator) .

Hamashbir LeTsarchan was Israel's first department store, and its Jerusalem store recently moved into this new building with the two glass elevators.
You can see the modern building still under construction in an earlier post.
The tower (or rotunda) with the elevators looks like a lighthouse.

Architect Aaronson said he designed the elevators as a "kinetic sculpture" that will radiate light outward and add to the general experience of passersby.
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Something new on old Jaffa Road

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James in California started his meme two years ago today. Now about a hundred bloggers contribute a reflection photo every weekend. Join the fun at Weekend Reflections.

An old building on Jaffa Street is reflected in a new building under construction.

Here's that new building from the other side (at the beginning of Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall).
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UPDATE:
OK, you curious and questioning readers never let me get by with a quick post. Your comment questions have made me do my homework.
So! This will soon be the new home of the HaMashbir LaTsarchan department store (now located on King George).
It will have five sales floors, a cafe, and a floor of offices.

You asked about the tower. Here is what Haaretz says:

[The] rotunda . . . functions like a kind of lighthouse visible from Jaffa Road and the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. The rotunda is actually the space that connects all the commercial floors inside, and contains two glass elevators. Aaronson [the architect] says he's designing the elevators as a "kinetic sculpture" that will radiate light outward and add to the general experience of passersby.

Ezeh keta!

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Form [sic] 9:00 to 18:00 only public "transpotraion" is allowed on this congested section of Agrippas Street in central Jerusalem.
Well, at least the Hebrew original is OK, almost.
I wonder how the Arabic translation fared on this big sign.
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Let's send it to the Signs, Signs meme--and maybe back to the printer too.

This is what the street looks like.
Standing or creeping buses as far as the eye can see.
It doesn't look like the private cars noticed the sign prohibiting them.
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Until a few months ago, most of this traffic went along the wider Jaffa Street.
But then came the new tram and most of Jaffa St. was closed to vehicles.
Agrippas is a mess.
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WALK ABOUT LOVE

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While buying fresh fruits and vegetables at Jerusalem's big market, I heard drums out on Jaffa Street.
Pulling the camera out of my pocket, I rushed over to see.
What is this?! Dozens of young people dressed like hippies "parading" down the middle of Jaffa Street?
Some were juggling, some dancing, a few were barefoot.
All of them, both Israelis and internationals, looked like happy flower children.
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Enlarge this and you will spot their flag.
It says WALK ABOUT LOVE.
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Back home, I found their website and Facebook page.
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Apparently people are walking together from Eilat to Dan, from the bottom to the top of Israel, mostly on the Israel Trail, some 1,000 kilometers, in 3 months.
All are welcome and you can drop in or drop out whenever you want.
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The idea was inspired by the Aboriginal custom of going walkabout.
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There is a lot more at the website, in several languages and with great photos, but I will quote just part:

On this walk we will use constructive, non-violent, and safe actions to spread the seeds of co-existence, peace, brotherly love, joy, and ecology.

This is not a protest journey against any war in particular: it is a particular action against the idea of war, aimed at changing the sociological and environmental situation in which war is fostered.

It is a practical action to deepen and spread the awareness of love in ourselves and in our brothers and sisters that we will meet along the way.
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The journey is composed from many days of walking the Israeli national trail, food circles, live spontaneous music in the evening, shared accommodation camp, initiatives of the people, colorful parades through towns, celebrations and anything else that we will create.

The change starts within you!

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Their weekend camp is going to be nearby, in the Jerusalem Forest.
Surely I will hear drumming in the night.
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It transports me to my university days in the USA in the mid 1960s, the dawning of the hippie revolution. I too was once an idealist dreaming of peace in my life and in the world.
I wish these kids the best on their journey!
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Metal in the sky

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The tram is shown going down the middle of Jaffa Road, next to the Machane Yehuda market.
The testing period has just been extended.
Hopefully in a few more weeks the light rail will be proclaimed safe enough to take the first human guinea pig passengers.
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Remembering with flowers

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Today I saw bunches of flowers stuck into the plaque on the wall of the Generali Building on Jaffa Road.
I looked more closely and found the date 3.3.1996.
So, today is the 15th anniversary of the death of the 19 people named on the plaque.
A terrorist's bomb exploded on their bus.
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There are many such memorial signs all around Jerusalem that list victims' names and the number of the bus route.
Most are from the bad old days of suicide bombers during the first and second intifadas.
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Trams in training!

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 For the first time in 3,000  years,  trams are moving through the streets of Jerusalem!
YAY!!
Yesterday was my first time to see one actually moving. 
I was so excited to see it coming that I ran across the street in order not to be shooting into the sun when  the tram would pass by.
The shadow on the zebra crossing is of the guard who shouted at me "Hurry up, fast!"
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The trams and their drivers will be doing such training runs for a few months before they dare to load up with curious first-time passengers.

Route map from CityPass 
(can be enlarged with a click) 

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What you see in the top photo  is the end of the train as it goes along Jaffa Street in the direction of the Old City.

It seemed rather incongruous, a sleek modern light rail in the narrow street  lined with old stone buildings housing mom and pop shops, right next to the old Machane Yehuda vegetable market.

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But I guess here in Jerusalem contrasts are nothing new to us.

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Most residents hated the  dug  up streets and congestion, but for me as a blogger it has been fascinating to watch and record, for these  many years, the building of Israel's first light rail transit system.

(Proof  of which is under my label "tram.")

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I'm proud to say That's My World.

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Sure is crowded downtown

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This week, after 150 years as Jerusalem's main artery, Jaffa Street is now closed to traffic.
Between Tsahal Square and Machaneh Yehuda market the street will be a pedestrian mall, open only to people and the new light rail.
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Enlarge this photo for a rear view (and a smile).

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Trial runs of the trams are supposed to start this week in this section, so workmen were busy trying to finish the job.

These three were caulking the roof of the Machaneh Yehuda station.

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Across the street, this technician or engineer (judging from his nice clean jeans) was fiddling with the more high tech stuff inside.

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A hundred men were hired to stand on Jaffa Street and explain to confused shoppers where to find their bus.

They also tried to speed up the bus traffic by helping the old folks with their many bags full of fruit and vegetables onto the buses, even through the rear door.

Some handed out pamphlets explaining the new light rail and how great it will be.

This help (from a private firm) will cost 100,000 shekels per day for the 100 "traffic assistants" and for the materials to explain the changes.
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The trams were supposed to be in service starting in April, but now they are saying more like August.

Some 2,000 buses go through downtown Jerusalem along parallel Nevi'im, Agrippas, and Jaffa Streets every day. Now, with Jaffa St. closed down, the congestion is even worse.

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More about the situation in the Jerusalem Post.
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But still, it is exciting to see our Jerusalem lion on the shiny new trams!

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That's the current situation for That's My World Tuesday.

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A haunted house in Jerusalem?

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You ready for a creepy story for today's That's My World tour?
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I had always wondered about this secretive historic building on Jaffa Street in central Jerusalem.
Thinking to get a photo from the back I walked into the parking lot.
A guard came running, asking me "What's this?!" and sent me and my camera away.

Next I peered through the locked front gate in the old embellished stone arch marked District Health Office.

From these signs I assumed this was the location of the travelers clinic where you can get immunizations for southeast Asia, India, Nepal, etc.

These are the destinations favored by our young men and women for a year of freedom following their long compulsory army service.

As I was leaning on the locked gate and peering into the dimness, a buzzer buzzed and I just about fell inside.

An armed guard searched my bag and questioned me.

He said I could take a few pictures but NOT to enter the building.

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What is IN there, I started wondering.

Sorry for the blurriness. I must have been shaking by then from the creepiness of the place and my desire to get out quickly.

What you are supposed to be seeing and being duly impressed by is the emblem of the Ottoman Empire on top of the building.

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Only later, safely back home, did I learn the truth about this building!

Here it is, as told in the Yad Ben-Zvi guidebook, Jerusalem, a walk through time:

"In 1882 a Christian Arab youth, the only child of a wealthy family, was about to marry. His delighted parents built for the couple a magnificent house where the wedding would be held, decorated it for the happy event, and invited all their friends and acquaintances.

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But a terrible blow descended on the family: the groom died on the eve of his nuptials.

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The parents, who were unable to come to terms with the enormity of the disaster, decided to hold the ceremony, no matter what.

They dressed the dead groom in his festive garb and seated him on a chair in the hall next to the bride who was wearing her wedding gown.

The guest and the mother circled around the couple and danced.

At the end of the dance, a terrible cry issued from the mother's thoat, she tore her clothes and fainted.

That very day the groom was buried.

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The house remained empty for a long time, since the rumors of evil spirits and curses drove away potential purchasers.

Only at the end of the nineteenth century did the Ottoman Jerusalem Municipality decide to buy the building and turn it into a city hospital [called 'Baladiyeh']. "

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The British used the building, which had since been given a second storey, for their District Health Office from 1918 to 1948.

And since '48 Israel has done the same.

Apparently the Ministry of Health has offices and labs inside "the dead groom's house." Although we will never know . . .

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"Where history meets luxury"

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You have a good view of the sky when the roof is gone.

This incredibly long building on Jaffa Road is called Batei Saidoff, meaning Saidoff Houses.

Isaac Saidoff built the complex in the 1920s, after he moved to Jerusalem from Shanghai.

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The great influx of Jews to Shanghai began in the second half of the 19th century and continued to grow in bursts through the end of World War II. The city was known as a bustling international trade and commerce hub, free from anti-Semitism and ripe with opportunity. At its height during the Holocaust this Jewish community, the largest in China, stood at nearly 50,000.

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In 1919 the Saidoff family sought refuge from the pogroms in Bukhara (in southern Russia). They fled to Shanghai and settled there in search of a new life. A few years later the family immigrated to Israel.

(source)

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As you saw in a recent post, the almost-century-old building is being reconstructed.
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Hard to imagine at this stage, but the contractor advertises it as "Your residence in Jerusalem--where history meets luxury."

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This video from Ashdar/Ashtrom Group will help us imagine what it will become.

This photo from a gray day in February shows the beginnings of the foundation for the 23-storey high-rise that will be part of the Saidoff Houses complex.

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The high-rise itself will have ninety 3- to 6-room apartments.

Globes says sales so far include a 270-square meter 6-room apartment for NIS 8.5 million and a 190-square meter 4-room apartment for NIS 6.3 million. At today's rate, that is $2,333,243 and $1,728,850.

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The view of Jerusalem, the Old City, and the Hills of Jerusalem doesn't come cheap!

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I imagine most buyers will be residents of the USA or UK who come to Israel only for the Jewish holidays, a few weeks a year, such as at Jerusalem's David's Village complex, which is a ghost town most of the year.

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Meanwhile, it is fun to follow the stages of deconstruction, reconstruction, and construction.

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Saving old stones

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Saving Jerusalem's nice old buildings so that new luxury residences can be built inside their shell is a lot of work.

This worker was cleaning an arch, stone by stone, of the hundred-year-old Saidoff Houses on busy Jaffa Street.
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That whirling steel brush could be bad for the eyes.
I'm glad they gave him plastic safety glasses. But enlarge the photo and see where they are!
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In the next few days I will have more on this big project that has been going on for years.
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That's it for now for That's My World Tuesday. Shalom!
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Just go over

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Click on the picture and enjoy how the setting sun turns the city into Jerusalem of Gold.
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I post this, however, to show the layout of the street, which has seen much development in recent years.

The new Kikar Zahal park is on the left, at the northwestern corner of the Old City wall.

From there, a delightful promenade at the foot of the wall takes you to Jaffa Gate.
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The photo shows Jaffa Road emerging from a tunnel.
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If you look back at yesterday's post, you can just about see that the road is slightly elevated.
Grave sites were discovered near Jaffa Gate when the road was being built.
Jewish tradition (law?) would never allow a road to be constructed ON the graves, but a little bit ABOVE them--OK.
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Now I need a title . . .
"Just go over" comes to mind.
You might enjoy the Chassidic wisdom in an earlier post by that name, back here.
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A bridge into Jaffa Gate

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Unless you look down, it's easy to forget that when you walk from Mamilla to the Jaffa Gate and into the Old City, you are actually crossing a bridge.

Busy Jaffa Road is underneath.
And, like we saw at the Damascus Gate, the bridge to the Jaffa Gate also spans over some antiquities.
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In the old days the road to the Mediterranean port of Jaffa started here, at the Jaffa Gate.
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Proving you don't have to have water to have a bridge. :) For Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridges.
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UPDATE: Please continue to the next post for a further explanation of why the road itself is elevated.
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A bike lane, in Jerusalem?!

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Jerusalem is going to have a dedicated bicycle lane??
Hard to believe!
The pictures of bikes along the new sidewalk is a good sign though.

As we saw in yesterday's post, Jaffa Street is getting ready to have its first-ever tram, in April inshallah.
The new sidewalk has been made, trees have been planted, and little shelters for future tram riders have been built.
In the photo above, the light rail tracks are to the left of the station.

Here's how that part of Jaffa Street looked in December 2008 when the rails were still above ground.
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This is the way I often walk from the Central Bus Station to the Mahaneh Yehuda market.
It is faster to walk than to sit in a bus that is trapped by the congestion of having only one or two lanes open for traffic.
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Living in Jerusalem takes a lot of patience.
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You know, I'm thinking now . . . they probably are making a bike path in order to keep bike riders off the tram lane.
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Jackhammers on Jaffa Road

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Enlarge the photo to see the bit a bit better

Just when I thought we had a nice new sidewalk along Jaffa Street (which has been torn up for years while the new tram rails are being built)--now I see it being drilled into and broken up.

Oi . . . again?
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But pity the poor workers who have to bend over a loud hot jackhammer in this abnormally high heat Jerusalem is presently suffering from.
Thanks guys.
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In a deep hole

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Well well, that's a big hole in the ground!
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Someday it will be Jerusalem's main train station, if the high speed train railway from Tel Aviv is ever completed.

The Central Bus Station is across the street, on the right (unseen in the photo).
Behind the big cranes is the big pylon of the Bridge of Strings/Chord Bride/Calatrava Bridge that we have been seeing on the two previous posts.
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These photos were taken through a plastic window which the builders were nice enough to leave in the barrier around the construction site.
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That's My World--we could make a tour just of cranes working in Jerusalem.
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Root balls on Jaffa Road

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For a long, long time Jerusalem's main street, old Jaffa Road, has been torn up [as in my post from November 2008].
Vehicle traffic was reduced to one congested lane and pedestrians had to walk just about single file along what remained of the sidewalk. Stores suffered.

Yesterday, in front of the Generali Building I was glad to see the street flat again, with the tracks for the future light rail already laid, and lots of room to walk.
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Look! We are even going to get trees!
I hope someone makes places to plant them before their root balls dry up.
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There were no workers in sight. Oi, hope no one grabs that axe!
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An Italian lion in Zion

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The "Jerusalem--The Built Heritage" sign says this corner building, completed in 1936, fuses neo-classicism with modernism and was designed by Marcello Piacentini, a renowned Italian architect of the modern monumentalist style.
It was built by the Italian Generali insurance company. Since the mid 1940s it has housed Israeli government offices and no longer has any connection with Assicurazioni Generali.
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But we still call it the Generali Building and it is a well-loved landmark on Jaffa Road, thanks largely to the sculpted winged lion on the roof.
Enlarge the photo to enjoy the lion with his book!

While reading about the Generali Building today, I was delighted to learn that the symbol of Assicurazioni Generali was derived from the flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, (which was dissolved by Napoleon three decades before the company was founded).

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Any Italians or Latin-scholars out there who can tell us what is written in the book?

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Stopgap

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Jaffa Road, a main artery in central Jerusalem, has been torn up for a long time, leaving little room for pedestrians and for buses and cars.

Laying of the track and of the infrastructure for the new light rail is costing millions.
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I find it humorous that in what should be such a sophisticated project they protect the still-open tubes from rain with left-over plastic bottles.

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Contrast

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CONTRAST is the theme for this month's City Daily Photo Theme Day.
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

Old contrasts with new on Jaffa Street, downtown Jerusalem.
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