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Hillbrow

Coordinates: 26°11′20″S 28°2′56″E / 26.18889°S 28.04889°E / -26.18889; 28.04889
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(Redirected from Hillbrow, Gauteng)
Hillbrow
Hillbrow and the Hillbrow Tower
Hillbrow and the Hillbrow Tower
Hillbrow is located in Gauteng
Hillbrow
Hillbrow
Hillbrow is located in South Africa
Hillbrow
Hillbrow
Coordinates: 26°11′20″S 28°2′56″E / 26.18889°S 28.04889°E / -26.18889; 28.04889
CountrySouth Africa
ProvinceGauteng
MunicipalityCity of Gauteng
Established1894
Area
 • Total1.08 km2 (0.42 sq mi)
Population
 (2011)[1]
 • Total74,131
 • Density69,000/km2 (180,000/sq mi)
Racial makeup (2011)
 • Black African98.3%
 • Coloured0.9%
 • Indian/Asian0.3%
 • White0.4%
 • Other0.2%
First languages (2011)
 • Zulu36.7%
 • Southern Ndebele16.1%
 • English9.7%
 • Northern Sotho7.1%
 • Other30.4%
Time zoneUTC+2 (SAST)
Postal code (street)
2001
PO box
2038
Area code010
Hillbrow Tower (right) with Ponte Apartment building and the skyline of Hillbrow.

Hillbrow ( /ˈhɪlbr/) is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution[2] and crime.

It had a large and active Jewish community for much of the twentieth century and housed several Orthodox synagogues such as the Great Synagogue and Poswohl Synagogue. Temple Israel, the oldest Reform synagogue in the country, continues to hold services. In the 1970s it was an Apartheid-designated "whites only" area under the Group Areas Act, but later became a "grey area", where people of different ethnicities lived together. It acquired a cosmopolitan and politically progressive feel, and was one of the first identifiable gay and lesbian areas in urban South Africa. However, due to the mass growth of the population of poor and unemployed people after the end of Apartheid, crime soared and the streets became strewn with rubbish.[3] This, together with lack of investment and fear led to an exodus of middle-class residents in the 1980s and the decay of major buildings, leaving in its wake an urban slum by the 1990s.[4]

Today, the majority of the residents are incoming migrants from the townships, rural areas and the rest of Africa, many living in abject poverty. An urban regeneration programme is underway. There are street markets, mainly used by local residents, and the Johannesburg Art Gallery contains work by major local artists including William Kentridge.

History

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Prior to the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, the suburb laid on government owned land called Randjeslaagte that now makes up the Johannesburg CBD. It was a triangular shaped piece of waste land not used for farming and the future suburb lies in the northern apex of the triangle. The origin of its name is simple, the suburb lies on the brow of the east west mountain ridge that crosses the Johannesburg CBD.[5] The land was owned as claims by J. Nicholls who sold them to Transvaal Mortgage, Loan & Finance Company.[6]: 129  It was laid out as a residential suburb during 1894 and 1895, with Richard Currie auctioning the stands.[5][6]: 129  In 1897 it became part of Johannesburg's Sanitary Board.[6]: 129  After World War Two, developers started purchasing the stands at values beyond their worth and eventually turned it into blocks of flats.[6]: 129 

Jewish community

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Since the beginning of the 1920s, Hillbrow was home to a growing and stable community of Jewish residents.[7] Jewish residents and investors were responsible for building most of Hillbrow's buildings.[8] The neighbourhood was also home to a number of popular meeting places for Jewish residents, such as the Florian Hotel on Kotze Street.[8]

The former Great Synagogue is located on Wolmarans Street. It is considered the city's mother synagogue and "the crown jewel of Orthodox Judaism in South Africa."[9] Hillbrow is also home to Temple Israel, the oldest Reform synagogue in the country.[10] The Art Deco building was designed by Herman Kallenbach and has been granted heritage status.[11] Hillbrow is also home to the former Poswohl Synagogue on Mooi Street.[12] The name refers to Pasvalys in Lithuania where the original members emigrated from at the turn of the century.[12] It was declared a National Monument under old NMC legislation on 4 December 1981.[12]

In the 1960s and 1970s, many elderly Jewish people purchased flats in Hillbrow, planning to stay there for the final chapter of their lives.[8] There was an uptick in Jewish migration out of the inner city suburbs into the northern suburbs from the mid-1970s.[8]

In 1967 the press reported confrontations between local Jewish youth and German immigrants at a beer hall in Hillbrow. The Germans made Hitler salutes, prompting protests from local Jewish youth. The West Germany embassy in South Africa issued a statement deploring the salute, blaming “irresponsible youths who were too young to experience Nazism” for celebrating the regime. Gideon Jacobs, a member of the opposition requested that the confrontations be the subject of a discussion in parliament.[13] A South African branch of the British neo-fascist National Front was established in 1978 and spread anti-semitic and racist pamphlets about Jewish landlords renting to non-white tenants in the suburb.[14]

A small number of mostly elderly and impoverished Jews continue to live in Hillbrow and neighbouring Berea.[15] They are mostly supported by Jewish charities in Johannesburg.[15]

Gay community

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In the mid-20th century, Hillbrow developed a reputation for its growing gay community. Many gay establishments and publications were founded in Hillbrow from the 1960s forward. The gay community was strong and large enough in Hillbrow that the conservative ruling National Party, which instituted apartheid, fielded a pro-gay rights candidate, Leon de Beer, in the 1987 elections. De Beer's victorious campaign was heavily advertised in the Hillbrow-based gay publication Exit and his campaign promises were to both advance gay rights in parliament and reinstate Hillbrow as a whites-only district.[16] His campaign garnered enough support from the gay community that he won the election, becoming the first elected official in South Africa to run and win on a pro-gay platform.[17][18]

In 1990, one of the first training and information centres for HIV in South Africa was established in Hillbrow, initially catering mainly to white gay men. As the racial demographic in Hillbrow radically shifted, so too did the people in need of HIV-related care, and by the late 1990s the clinics mainly worked with black heterosexual women. Hillbrow experienced a heavy decline and most of the gay community, which was predominantly white, left the area within the decade.

Social action

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A number of social action groups and organisations exist in the suburb to alleviate the difficult conditions challenges. In 1990 Jean du Plessis and Adele du Plessis founded The House Group, an organization with several shelters and programs aimed at retrieving and rehabilitating female child victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The organization's first address in Hillbrow was on 52 Soper Road, close to Ponte City. In 1993 they moved to two adjacent premises on 60 Olivia Road (at the foot of the Hillbrow Tower) where the organization had The House Drop-in Centre and Intombi Shelter. The House Group were pioneers in pushing for legislation that would provide for equal rights for girls in shelters (legislation already supported boys in shelters). In 1997, the Gauteng Provincial Government proclaimed the first legislation that allowed shelters for female children.

Landmarks

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Constitution Hill

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The Constitution Hill precinct, seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, is located on the western edge of Hillbrow, and is part of a major government and private sector initiative to revitalize the area and the rest of the CBD.

Hillbrow Tower

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The Hillbrow Tower, a telecommunication tower, dominates the Johannesburg city skyline, featured in many picture postcard views of the city. It has become a symbol of the city and appears in the city seal. Completed in 1971, it rises to a height of 270 metres, thus making it the tallest man-made structure with a lift in Africa. Initially named the JG Strijdom Tower, it became popularly known simply as the Hillbrow tower, and in May 2005 it was renamed to Telkom Joburg Tower, with its new name displayed prominently in lights. It once featured a luxury rotating restaurant, but that was closed in 1981 due to security fears and is unlikely to be reopened.

Ponte City

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Ponte City is the tallest residential building in Johannesburg and one of the city's most striking urban landmarks. It was designed by architect Rodney Grosskopff (who also designed other South African landmarks such as the Johannesburg Civic Theatre) and completed in 1975.

The building is distinct due both to its height, rising to 54 storeys above one of the highest points in Johannesburg, as well as its cylindrical shape. During its prime, Ponte City was one of the city's most sought-after addresses, but with inner-city urban decay setting in, it has become run-down, over-populated, and unsafe. The building was placed under new management in 1999, and with regular maintenance reinstated and gradual restoration, coupled with council, provincial, and government initiatives to rehabilitate Hillbrow, it began to find some shine again. In February 2007, Danny Boyle, the British director of Trainspotting, announced plans to use the building as a film set in a future release.[19]

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Cafe Wien, Hillbrow, Johannesburg (1980)

Literature

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  • Zoo City, a 2010 science fiction novel by Lauren Beukes is largely set in Hillbrow.
  • The Restless Supermarket, a 2001 novel by Ivan Vladislavić, portraying South Africa's transition to democracy through the lens of Aubrey Tearle, a conservative white pensioner. Through this lens, Hillbrow becomes representative of the larger post-apartheid South Africa.
  • Welcome to Our Hillbrow, a 2001 novel by Phaswane Mpe deals with life in the district in the years after apartheid, focusing on a large number of issues ranging from poverty, HIV/AIDS, and xenophobia.
  • Room 207, a 2006 novel by Kgebetli Moele about six young black men living in Hillbrow[20]

Music

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Film

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Documentary

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In 2000, Michael Hammon and Jacqueline Görgen directed a documentary named Hillbrow Kids, depicting the struggles of a group of street children in post-apartheid urban South Africa. In 2007, BBC Two reporter Louis Theroux ran a documentary called Law and Disorder in Johannesburg.[21] The documentary depicted the state of complete abandon and lawlessness in some parts of the city, specifically in Hillbrow. In January 2013, Al Jazeera English aired a Witness documentary about Hillbrow described as "A personal journey to Hillbrow, where human spirit, hope and enterprise triumph in this crime-ridden melting pot in the heart of South Africa."[22]

Photography

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The suburb was the subject of several photographs by the renowned photographer, David Goldblatt. "Hillbrow, Johannesburg, South Africa 1973" depicts a white family amid the context of the Group Areas Act designating the area "Whites-only".[23] "Domestic Worker on Abel Road, Hillbrow, Johannesburg March 1973", depicts a black domestic worker.[24] Both photographs are held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.[25] "Sunday morning: A not-White family living illegally in the "White" group area of Hillbrow, Johannesburg" depicts a black family living in Hillbrow in defiance of the Group Areas Act. The photograph is part of the collection at Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.[26] In 2010, some of his Hillbrow photographs featured in the exhibition "South African Photographs: David Goldblatt" at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan. They included "Holdup in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, November 1963", depicting a small white child with a toy gun playing with a black man.[27] "Baby with childminders and dogs in the Alexandra Street Park, Hillbrow, Johannesburg, 1972" shows a white baby with black childminders.[28] These photographs were on loan from the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg for the exhibition. His other photographs from the area include: "The watchman, Balnagask Court, Hillbrow. June 1972", "Woman shopping, Hillbrow. 1972" and "Man with an injured arm, Hillbrow. June 1972".[29]

Notable people

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Sub Place Hillbrow". Census 2011.
  2. ^ Richter, Marlise (January 2008). "Erotic Labour in Hillbrow: Sex work, Johannesburg's' Den of Iniquity'and HIV/AIDS". HIV and the World of Work Conference. Retrieved 30 January 2019.
  3. ^ Conway, Daniel (December 2009). "Queering Apartheid: The National Party's 1987 'Gay Rights' Election Campaign in Hillbrow". Journal of Southern African Studies. 35 (4): 849–863. doi:10.1080/03057070903313210. S2CID 144525158.
  4. ^ Morris, Alan (1999). Bleakness and Light: Inner-City Transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.
  5. ^ a b Raper, Peter E.; Moller, Lucie A.; du Plessis, Theodorus L. (2014). Dictionary of Southern African Place Names. Jonathan Ball Publishers. p. 1412. ISBN 9781868425501.
  6. ^ a b c d Musiker, Naomi; Musiker, Reuben (2000). A Concise Historical Dictionary of Greater Johannesburg. Cape Town: Francolin. ISBN 978-1868590711.
  7. ^ The Jewish Community of Johannesburg, 1886-1939: Landscapes of Reality and Imagination University of Pretoria. December 2004
  8. ^ a b c d Nerio, Nerio; Halley, Jean (2022). The Roads to Hillbrow.
  9. ^ "(en) "The end of Jew-hannesburg?"". 6 December 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  10. ^ The Future of Jewish South Africa Tablet Mag. 22 March 2023
  11. ^ South Africa's Oldest Reform Synagogue Is a Place Where Few Jews Dare Venture Haaretz. 19 June 2019
  12. ^ a b c Poswohl Synagogue, Mooi Street, Johannesburg SA History. Retrieved on 4 October 2023
  13. ^ So, African Parliament to Discuss Johannesburg Clash Between Jews and Germans Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 10 May 1967
  14. ^ Morris, A. (1994). The Desegregation of Hillbrow, Johannesburg, 1978-82. Urban Studies, 31(6), 821-834. https://doi.org/10.1080/00420989420080691
  15. ^ a b Life is tough for elderly still living in Hillbrow and Berea South African Jewish Report. 6 September 2018
  16. ^ Engin F. Isin; Peter Nyers (27 June 2014). Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-23795-9.
  17. ^ Edwin Cameron; Mark Gevisser (13 September 2013). Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. Routledge. pp. 61–62. ISBN 978-1-136-65595-1.
  18. ^ de Waal, Shaun (1 September 1989). "Everyone's chasing the Hillbrow gay vote". Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  19. ^ New Danny Boyle project Ponte Tower in first stage of development
  20. ^ A Walk through Hillbrow: Melancholic Attachments, Impeded Movement and the Search for a Post-Apartheid Image of Masculinity in Kgebetli Moele's Room 207 Scrutiny2 by UNISA. 2017
  21. ^ Inside the Hijacked Building | Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Johannesburg| BBC Studios BBC. 2007
  22. ^ Hillbrow: Between Heaven and Hell | Witness Al Jazeera. 2013
  23. ^ David Goldblatt works MoMA. Retrieved on 6 June 2024
  24. ^ David Goldblatt works MoMA. Retrieved on 6 June 2024
  25. ^ David Goldblatt - South African, 1930–2018 MoMA. Retrieved on 3 June 2024
  26. ^ Sunday morning: A not-White family living illegally in the "White" group area of Hillbrow, Johannesburg Yale University Art Gallery. Retrieved on 6 June 2024
  27. ^ David Goldblatt’s photographs tell the story of South Africa The Economist. 4 February 2019
  28. ^ David Goldblatt Art Blart. 15 September 2010
  29. ^ David Goldblatt Lens Culture. Retrieved on 3 June 2024

Bibliography

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  • Daniel Conway (2009), "Queering Apartheid: the National Party's 1987 'Gay Rights' Election Campaign in Hillbrow", Journal of Southern African Studies, 35,4: 849–863.
  • Glynn Griffiths and Paddy Clay, Hillbrow (Cape Town: Don Nelson, 1982)
  • Alan Morris, Bleakness and Light: Inner City Transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg (Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand Press, 1999)
  • Ron Nerio and Jean Halley, The Roads to Hillbrow: Making Life in South Africa's Community of Migrants (Fordham University Press, 2022)
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