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Isabel Maxwell is President of Maxwell-Communications Network, specializing in assisting
Israeli companies with their cross-border expansions; She is Chair of the
Social Entrepreneurs Fellowship Program of Israel Venture Network; a
member of the Board of Governors of the Peres Center for Peace and a
Director of the American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center. She has been dividing her time between Israel and California for the past decade.
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By Isabel Maxwell
March 31, 2008
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| Tel Aviv under siege - near Rabin Square (Isabel Maxwell) |
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As Israel prepares itself for its 60th anniversary of existence, Tel Aviv gets ready to celebrate its 100 birthday next year. The fever of excitement and reflection and renovation is not just in the air, but on the ground, streets and buildings of the city.
As someone who has spent significant time in Tel Aviv these past four years, and become accustomed to the higgledy piggledy ways of getting around, NOTHING prepared me for the experience this visit!
On the plus side, the extraordinary feat has been accomplished of moving back 100 meters, completely intact, the four historic old houses of the Sarona period opposite the Kyria (the central command base of the IDF, one of Israel's most mythological institutions) make way for the 3 lane high road into the heart of Azrieli, and a lovely green park "Sarona Gardens" space made alongside which contributes well to the further greening of the city. Thank you Mayor Ron Huldai!
On the minus side, the beautifying of Tel Aviv is resulting in massive dislocation?. In all parts of the city and at many of the major junctions, the tearing up of the roads and pipes is in full swing causing traffic chaos that dwarfs all previous traffic issues in the city. For instance, I was whizzing around to turn into Ha'arba' Street, for instance, when I was met with a sudden phalanx of notice boards including a large orange one that apparently says (if you can read Hebrew) the equivalent of "tough luck, find another way" ? the entire Ha'arba' road is dug up all the way down to the end where the restaurant is I have a meeting at- And the whole street looks like the proverbial bomb hit it. I ended up queuing to get in a car park the wrong end and making my way through vacant lots and an old school yard where owners and their dogs were undergoing some kind of strict training lesson, through a crack in an old fence to Ha'arba' -- the wrong end of course.... Never mind, the high chairs and the food and the exotic vodkas and the company at Messa Restaurant made up for it.
And as for other parts of the city, another unbelievable mess is that around the Habima, the Opera house of the city. Now in its 3rd year of creation of a 3000 car, car park (waaaaaaaa!) and the 'tearing down/restoration' of the Opera, there is the most gigantic hole in the ground which Tel Avivians line up to peer into and marvel at on a daily basis.
How on earth will it all work?? It will be GREAT to have a parking space in this city of non-existent spaces, but how long will it take to get in and out of such a place and I had visions of nightmare traffic jams just getting in to the car park to begin with!!
As I wobble on my bike earlier in the evening out of the narrow one way Ahad Ha'am I have come to know so well, I am greeted with a huge barrier right across the way I normally drive back towards Rabin square. I must turn left into BenTsyon street (the only good thing is that I can now do that instead of being forced to go round to Rothschild and down Hashmona'im Street! And whiz down with the never-ending stream of traffic towards Dizengoff and the beach.
Yesterday late afternoon, driving home down Bloch Street towards Rabin Square, suddenly everything came to a screeching halt and I burst out laughing! Ahead of me I see no less than 4 huge bulldozers converge on a poor piece of concrete and begin tearing it up. Any cars in the immediate vicinity stop dead rather than be crushed by the yellow monsters. Everyone is trying to turn around or get out of the way of this virulent activity at a major intersection and truly it looks exactly how those bumper car rides are at fair grounds -- where each car is driving around madly in any which way direction with the sole aim of bumping into every car they can OR getting out of the way of being bumped.
I'm reminded of my brother's hilarious tale in Paris many years ago where he had a prang in his car coming back to his apartment there from a meeting and as a consequence could only turn his wheels right. It took him 4 hours to get home.
I felt as if my car was suffering from similar effects, except that it was not of my own making!
My mother's mother, who today would be well over 100 years old, always said to my mother when she was a youngster, as she combed out her long tangly tresses, "Il faut suffrir pour etre belle" -- "one must suffer to be beautiful" -- and she clearly could just as easily have had Tel Aviv in mind as my mother!
My last night in Tel Aviv is symbolic of everything that is this teeming cosmopolitan city serves up. It is the beginning of Purim, and the neighbors are having a party -- the whole street is having a party -- starting at midnight. At 4am the music is still pulsing at full blast and the whole building has been shaking all night. If this is Tel Aviv at age 100, no wonder it needs to have a facelift!
With all that partying and shaking the booty, the walls and streets and pipes and lights will need shoring up for the next 100 years!
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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