Charles Apple

When I posted this photo from Sunday afternoon…

…the appearance of the giant communications tower at left drove home the fact that I’ve never managed to find a good vantage point from which to take the definitive picture of the skyline of Johannesburg.

I’m sure such a place exists. But even after two months, its location beats the hell out of me.

So instead, I thought I’d take you on a brief tour of some of the most prominent elements of the Johannesburg skyline. Or, at least, on my side of Johannesburg — the north side.

There are four structures we’ll talk about. And we’ll start with the tallest:

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HILLBROW TOWER

This is the one I mentioned above — it’s at the far left of that photo I shot from my window.

In fact, I can give you a much better look without even leaving my hotel room. Here is the Hillbrow tower under three different lighting conditions (click any of these for a larger view):

TELKOM TOWER
Height: 882.5 feet
Completed: April 1971
Location: Goldreich and Banket Streets, Hillbrow
Original name when built: J.G. Strijdom Tower

Originally built as a microwave transmitter for the post office, this enormous structure was renamed Telkom Tower after the telecommunications functions of the South African post office were spun off into a separate company. Hardly anyone here calls it the Telkom Tower, though, despite the giant sign at the top.

There was originally a lot of cool stuff there for sightseers, according to the Joburg Book by Nechama Brodie:

• Heinrich’s, a revolving restaurant that could seat 108 people.
• A smaller restaurant called the Grill Room.
• A lavishly-decorated VIP room that could be rented out for special functions.
• A public observation deck that could accommodate 200 people.

SouthAfricaInfo’s Lucille Davie writes:

The floor revolved at between one and three revolutions per hour in an anti-clockwise direction. When the restaurant was full, it weighed 64 metric tons, yet its movement was “so smooth and well-balanced”, that it required only a three horsepower motor to turn it.

On his Johannesburg Landmarks site, Rodney Jones gleefully points out:

It is interesting to note that the height of the Hillbrow tower is virtually the same as the length of the Titanic (269m).

In the early 1980s, anti-Apartheid forces conducted various acts of violence — today, we’d call it terrorism — against the government and the establishment in general. As a result, the Hillbrow tower was closed to the public in 1981 and has never reopened.

The area where the tower is located — Hillbrow — was once a very trendy neighborhood. However, it fell upon very hard times in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is quite dodgy now.

I’ve been warned a number of times to say clear of the area. The photo above was taken from about a quarter-mile away, the closest I dared to approach.

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PONTE CITY APARTMENTS

Just a few blocks to the southeast of the tower — but still in Hillbrow — is a tall, cylindrical-shaped apartment building called Ponte City. You see it here, to the left of the tower.

The area around Ponte City is even more dangerous than that around the tower. In fact, the building is such a poster child for Johannesburg’s urban decay that a proposal was floated in 1998 to turn the place into a prison.

PONTE CITY APARTMENTS
Height: 607 feet (54 stories)
Completed: 1975
Location: 1 Lily Ave., Hillbrow
Original name when built: Strydom Tower

It’s not just built on a circular floor plan. The building is actually hollow. Stephanie Hanes of the Christian Science Monitor reported last year:

[Architect Rodney Grosskopff] knew it had to be tall to fit all the units that the developers wanted, so he designed a 568-foot concrete and steel giant, adding a new focal point to the city’s skyline. Because of bylaws requiring kitchens and bathrooms to have a window, he decided to leave an open, 32,000 square foot inner core, which let light into apartments from both sides.

But within two decades, the place was a wreck, Hanes wrote:

By the mid ’90s, Hillbrow’s murder and rape rates were worse than almost any place in the world. Ponte City’s owners hadn’t stepped foot in the building for years, and rubble piled up five stories high in the core. Despite the expansive views from every unit, the building was better known for rats, guns, drugs, and violence. Ponte City’s notoriety even spilled into the literary world – German novelist Norman Ohler centered his book, Stadt des Goldes, on Ponte, telling the violent story of a young woman who falls in love with a Nigerian drug lord who lives there.

Lucille Davie, writing for the city’s web site, disputes the five-story figure but updates us on the mound of trash:

A huge problem was the three stories of garbage filling the base of the cylinder, accumulated since the first tenants moved in. That’s now clear, with just odd pieces of paper caught on window sills down the length of the building. Although, says [building manager Danie Celliers], people still can’t resist throwing rubbish out the windows. There’s a dedicated person employed to spend his day picking up that garbage.

Find a photo gallery of the inside of this mess here.

Atop Ponte City is a brilliant blue sign advertising Vodacom, the big cell phone company here. But for many years, I’m told, it was a Coca-Cola sign up there.

And there’s an interesting story there. Somebody named Station23 wrote about Ponte City at Everything2.com:

“You see that building over there? Used to be known as ’suicide central’ – people from all over town would go there to jump…”

The driver is talking, and I’m listening. We’re speeding through Johannesburg in a faded taxi, the dashboard trinkets rattling at each breakneck turn. Staring out the window, passively absorbing the driver’s words of wisdom, helps me breathe.

During the course of the ten-minute ride, he goes on to explain that the building is no longer known as “suicide central,” for the predictable reason that no one sends themselves hurtling towards death from that particular building anymore. Turns out a couple of years ago, the Coca-Cola corporation decided the building would be a prime location for a large red billboard, and once this was erected, the roof of the building had to be fenced off, to protect the billboard from any local vandals. The people rejoiced…

“Yeah, people started calling Coca-Cola ‘the people’s savior’.”

…I notice the huge billboard erected on the roof. And then notice something odd.

“But the sign says Vodafone!”

“Yeah, well. Saints change…”

One wonders why anyone would want their logo on a place with a reputation like Ponte.

There was reportedly a huge effort to clean up Ponte City in order to use it for housing during the World Cup soccer event next year. As is the case with so many things in this country, however, there were questionable business dealings, controversy, and, eventually, no project.

We drove past the place on the freeway, several weeks ago. Which is the only way I got these shots. No way am I going down there by myself.

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RADIO PARK

About two-and-a-half miles to the west of Hillbrow — much, much closer to my hotel and practically across the street from MediaPark, the home of the newspapers for which I’ve been consulting — is Radio Park, the headquarters for the South African Broadcast Company.

In this picture, you see their big, 30-story tower on the right. On the left — just past the flags — you can see the Hillbrow tower in the distance.

RADIO PARK
Height: 30 stories
Completed: n/a
Location: 35 Henley Road, Brixton

I drive past this building every day. There’s a high fence surrounding the complex and lots of security, but it’s a very nice area.

There are a lot of buildings at Radio Park, in fact. And a huge parking deck for all the employees.

Information on the building itself is awfully sketchy. Hence, my lack of details.

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SENTECH TOWER

We opened this piece with a huge communications tower. So it’s fitting we close with one, too.

Located high atop a hill — or koppie — behind the SABC headquarters site is the Sentech Tower.

The Sentech Tower is used by the SABC and the post office. According to its Wikipedia entry, the tower was originally a microwave transmitter but currently broadcasts seven TV channels and 18 FM radio stations.

SENTECH TOWER
Height: 784 feet
Completed: 1962
Location: 35 Henley Road, Brixton
Unofficial name: Brixton Tower
Original name when built: Albert Hertzog Tower

The large, globe-like structure at the top once housed an observation deck. There was a restaurant at the base. Like its taller Hillbrow sister, however, the tower was closed to tourists in 1982 and never reopened, reportedly.

However, my colleague Anton Vermeulen recalls not long ago when there was an amusement park-like ride at the tower. You’d ride up the elevator and then slide down a spiral track attached to the side. This closed around the time Sentech bought the naming rights, Anton says. That would have been eight or nine years ago.

Unlike the Hillbrow tower, you can safely drive up to the front gate without feeling like your life is in danger. Here, I’m sitting outside the Sentech guardhouse. In the distance, you can see the Hillbrow tower, a good two-and-a-half miles away:

Four interesting pieces of architecture, all within just a few miles of my hotel home.

View Johannesburg skyline in a larger map

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 4:18 am and is filed under Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.