Talk:Allenby Square

Stones of memorial from Jaffa Gt. clock tower - NOT!

"According to Israeli researcher Dov Genehovsky, the monument was built from the stones of the dismantled Ottoman clock tower which had been erected on top of the Jaffa Gate at the accession of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II." Cited book: [4], pages 146–147. Highly unlikely! Maybe there is some info about that on page 146 (not available online today), but I doubt it, and on p. 147 there is smth. else altogether written about the topic. There & in many other sources it is written that the CLOCK from the clock tower was set up again in the OLD Allenby Square (probably the origin of the confusion here!), on a new purpose-built tower. The Turkish clock tower however wasn't apparently dismantled until 1922, 2 yrs AFTER the memorial was erected! So no way its stones could have been reused for the memorial. If smb. has sources to the contrary, pls. post them; if not, this whole story should be removed. Thanks, ArmindenArminden (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

There does seem to be some confusion here. The Goldhill source cited in the reference states that when the clocktower was dismantled, the clock itself was reincorporated in another structure outside the Jaffa Gate where a post office was located (which was not the same as the central post office built by the British on Jaffa Road). The area just outside the gate was called Allenby Square. The Palestine Post reports that this structure, which housed kiosks, was also torn down in 1934.[5]. So the reuse of stones was here, not in Romema.--Geewhiz (talk) 05:44, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

@Gilabrand: Thanks! So the passage is indeed a misunderstanding and I will remove it. Here is what I have (and will one day use for a WP article on the clock tower):

• The clockwork itself was made by the same London comp. who made Big Ben! So the Brits offered the clock some additional respect.
  

QUOTE: One curious reminder of home stares at the Englishman as he enters the city the clock surmounting the tawdry [kitschy] tower within the gate, which bears on its face the legend "Dent, Cockspur Street, London." => clock made by Dent & Co. of London, makers of the Big Ben! from Norman Bentwich, Egyptian Expeditionary Force: "Palestine of the Jews: Past, Present, and Future", chapter: Jerusalem Revisited, p 271. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., London, 1919. (Got it from ForgottenBooks.com).
A Palestine Remembered contributor (www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Jerusalem_5176/Picture_12845.html) came up with the following: "The British moved the clock first to a new tower across from the muncipility [sic] of Jerusalem, and then transfered it to the British Museum in London." I do NOT consider this to be a good source, but who knows, maybe the Brits did indeed send the clockwork "back home" to London.

• My understanding is that the post office is the old UK-owned one, they had their own much like the Austrians, French, Italians etc. all did since the Capitulations. I don't know anything about it. Ah, Simon Goldhill's Jerusalem: City of Longing (hardcover ed. is from 2008!), p. 147, claims that "The British Post Office, on Jaffa Road, remains a dominant municipal building" - ? Does he confuse it w. the later Central Post Office? But that one's quite a distance further down Jaffa Rd! Very unlikely that the older, pre-WWI British post office was also located there, but still gave its name to the square up the road.
• LOCATION: you can easily make it out by comparing these two pictures, both showing the space in front/south of the building shared by the Mandate City Hall and the Barclay's Bank (who financed the entire construction). The bank took the ground floor plus some more of the rounded, southern wing (it is only visible in ONE of the 2 photos). The building that appears in BOTH pictures is the one east of the bank, with six white decorative header-and-stretcher pairs set only along the first-floor-level seam between W and S facades, but not along the ground-level storey seam. So it was set somewhat SE of Barclay's Bank and W of the St Louis Hospital's SW corner. This was called by some/initially Post Office Sq., then Allenby Square (the OLD Allenby Sq.).
  • http://lh4.ggpht.com/_x4Gor5dqvi8/SslagBxW1TI/AAAAAAAAAso/WYCkUApqhwc/New%20City%20outside%20nw%20corner%20of%20Old%20City%20walls,%20mat13390_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800
  • http://lh6.ggpht.com/_x4Gor5dqvi8/S8ijYN_9N5I/AAAAAAAABHU/5_CTN8usuZE/s1600-h/Allenby%20Square%20clocktower-1934%5B6%5D.jpg

The original picture of the British tower is at [www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2007675295/], but today it seems to be offline.

Here is the removed material, processed by me, good to be reused for a future art. about the Turkish (1907/08 - 1922) & British (1922 - 1934) clock towers:
The Ottoman clock tower has been erected on top of the Jaffa Gate to belatedly mark the 25th anniversary of the accession of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II - first just the clock atop Jaffa Gate in 1907, then in 1908 the tower too, with the clock at the 3rd of its four storeys. The tower was dismantled by the Mandate authorities in 1922, and a new structure including a tower was erected at Post Office Square, aka the (first) Allenby Square near the City Hall, Barclay's Bank, St Louis Hospital, and facing the Old City's northwest corner. According to Israeli researcher Dov Genehovsky, the new (British Mandate) clock tower was built from the stones of the dismantled Ottoman tower. The new structure was itself demolished in 1934 due to rising traffic in the area.
.Cheers, ArmindenArminden (talk) 22:05, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

References

Work needed on commons

As the article makes clear, "Allenby Square" refers to two different places: they should have two different commons cats.

Presently we have:

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tzahal Square
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Allenby_Square

....but they are a mess. Should we pass them all into two new cats, say, "Allenby Square I" and "Allenby Square II"?

Comments? Huldra (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2019 (UTC)