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Follow the cobblestone road
By ELLI WOHLGELNERTER
 Former
Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek tells about the challenges of
rehabilitating and integrating the reunited city.
June 10, 1967: a cease-fire was declared, the Six Day War
was over, and where everyone stood was where everyone would
stand.
Suddenly, Jerusalem was united, a blend of East and West,
new and old, a mixture of two different cultures: a Jewish
majority and an Arab minority. What to do now? Teddy Kollek,
who had been elected mayor in 1965, knew he was facing something
new, something he could not have imagined, or planned.
"When I looked at the city, [when I was elected] and even
more so a year and a half later when it was united, I saw
what a poor city it was, what tremendous needs there were,
and what even greater possibilities there were."
"Also, that there were tremendous demands on the city that
didn't concern the citizens themselves, [like] the restoration
of the Via Dolorosa, or the walls of the Old City. You had
needs of the city, but you also had needs that were demanded
from the city, because it was Jerusalem to the entire world,
and you had to live up to it."
On June 27, 20 days after Jerusalem was liberated, the Knesset
formally added the eastern part to Israeli sovereignty, and
passed a law protecting holy places from desecration and assuring
freedom of access to all.
But what a mess the Old City was in! Years - if not centuries
- of neglect had left it in an advanced stage of decay. It
was time to get to work.
One of the first orders of business was the area in front
of the Western Wall, which was completely cleared of all buildings
in anticipation of the millions who would visit the site each
year. Clearing dirt from the Wall itself was also undertaken,
but it was decided to stop after uncovering one more layer
of Herodian stone and build the plaza at that point.
More excavation took place beside the Wall further north,
resulting in an unprecedented archeological and tourist site
known as the Western Wall Tunnel.
A decision was made to entirely replace the Old City's dilapidated
infrastructure, while at the same time salvaging and restoring
its physical history. Modern sewage and drainage systems were
installed, eliminating the unbearable stench that was prevalent
there before the war, and the water, electricity, telephone
and television grids were all renovated.
Special attention was given to strengthening defective foundations
of buildings in danger of collapse. Included in that were
the walls of the Old City itself, which were covered along
their base with rubble and garbage.
"The walls of the city had been crumbling, there was very
little of them left," says Kollek. "For three years a 15-member
crew worked on rebuilding the city walls. They had been built
from different quarries, and in every case we went back to
the same quarry, to build it from the same stone that this
part of the wall had been built. We built the city walls again
- today it looks as it looked when Suleiman built them, with
the foundations of the Herodian wall below."
A carpet of grass, called the Jerusalem Gardens National
Park, was laid down around the circumference of the wall,
creating a patchwork of some 30 parks and archeological gardens.
"Immediately when the city was united, I invited 30 or 40
people here, the best minds of the world, to consult on what
we would do," Kollek recalls. "They sat here for a week and
studied it together with us, and some turned out without any
ideas, but some had [good ideas]. Amongst them were architects,
university presidents, scientists - it was called the Jerusalem
Committee.
"One of them was a man called Louis Kahn, a high priest of
architecture at the time. I took him to two places and asked
him [what we should do], and I got a reply in both cases that
no other architect gave. We had a plan of a street going around
the city walls. He and other architects said, 'Move this away.'
They wanted to move it down below. He said 'No, move it farther
away, leave a green belt around the city.' "
Around the walls much renovation and restoration was accomplished
following excavations and a cleanup, including the ancient
gates of the Old City.
Beneath the Damascus Gate, for example, excavations in the
early 1980s revealed an entranceway from the Roman period.
The whole area around that gate, as well as others, was cleared
and restored to its earlier splendor.
The Tower of David, parts of which go back to the second
century BCE, was excavated, and the Museum of the History
of Jerusalem was opened there in 1983.
The Jewish Quarter, completely destroyed in the 19 years
it was under Jordanian occupation, was reconstructed and developed.
In the process, large-scale excavations revealed historical
sites that were incorporated as tourist sites amid a thriving
Jewish residential area. These include the Cardo, a section
of the main Roman commercial street that existed in the second
century; a section of the seven-meter-thick Broad Wall that
was part of Hezekiah's northern city wall; The Burnt House,
the basement of a house destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE,
during the destruction of the Second Temple; the Nea Church,
one of the largest churches of the Byzantine world that was
built by Emperor Justinian (485-565); and the Wohl Archeological
Museum, an archeological excavation of houses underneath Yeshivat
Hakotel called the Herodian Quarter, where priests from the
Temple are believed to have lived.
WESTERN Jerusalem, meanwhile, faced other problems. There
was an urgent need to develop more housing for the swarms
of people who suddenly wanted to come live in the unified
city. New municipal boundaries were drawn up after the war
to allow for urban expansion, and were designed to form a
barrier against any future partition plan.
The first area of expansion linked Mount Scopus with the
rest of the city, in the areas of Ramat Eshkol, Givat Hamivtar
and French Hill. The second was the building of four new bedroom
communities: Neveh Ya'acov, Ramot, East Talpiot and Gilo.
More recently, the construction of Pisgat Ze'ev linked Neveh
Ya'acov with French Hill.
One of the issues the city faced, both in the downtown area
and the outlying suburbs, was how to build: what kind of material
to use, and how high to construct the buildings. Kollek was
advised by the Jerusalem Committee to build only in stone,
and no high-rises. He took their advice, despite the price:
He traded land for air space.
"There were some high-rises already: the Wolfson buildings
had existed - three had existed and three still had to be
built - the Hilton already had a permit, the Laromme had a
permit for I don't know how many floors, the Hyatt had a permit
for 26 floors... Then we added some land and convinced them
[to lower the buildings' height].
"In some cases we didn't have additional land. For example
the Migdal Ha'ir building. It would have cost us $8 million
in 1967 or '68 when we started negotiations with them. We
didn't have that [money] anyway, so the building went up.
They had a permit, and you couldn't stop anybody with a permit
unless you paid him his loss. So a number of high-rises went
up." Kollek said the city council made a decision not to construct
residential buildings higher than eight floors, which copied
the building code of Washington, DC. The hard part was convincing
the contractors to build in stone.
"It costs about 8 percent or 9 percent more in stone, but
it repays itself over 10 or 20 years because you don't have
to restore it as often. But when an investor builds, he sells
the apartment afterwards, he doesn't care what happens in
10 or 20 years."
Non-residential development in the city included the eastern
Jerusalem government complex, the restoration and development
of the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus,
the building of the City Hall complex known as Safra Square,
and the doubling of hotel rooms in the city with the building
of more than a dozen new hotels.
In the southwest part of the city, major development took
place in the neighborhood of Malha, or Manahat, which was
itself expanded into a much larger locality. The largest mall
in the Middle East was built alongside, and next to it a technology
park. Across the street saw the building of Teddy Stadium,
and the Biblical Zoo was moved to a nearby location from its
previous home in Sanhedria.
An infrastructure to accommodate all the new building was
also undertaken, with major roads upgraded and new ones built
along the former frontier between eastern and western Jerusalem,
as well as the north-south Road No. 4 that is now under construction.
Kollek says one of his first priorities 30 years ago was
building parks all over the city, much of which was done with
the assistance of the Jerusalem Foundation.
"There was not a single tree in the city - every tree has
been planted since then. Individual trees were planted in
private plots near a house, but nobody took care of the public
space. Since then the city is becoming a green city... not
quite, it takes longer for a tree to grow than to build a
house.
"[The Foundation] came to an agreement with the city - which
was easy because it was the same person, now it's a little
more difficult - the Foundation plants the garden, and brings
it up to a first-class state, and the city takes over the
permanent maintenance."
The Jerusalem Foundation has been the single biggest contributing
organization to the city's welfare over the last 30 years,
having raised some $430 million towards improving the quality
of life in the capital.
Its focus is on five areas of development for the city: education,
culture, community services, beautification and preservation
of historic sites.
Altogether over 1,500 projects large and small have been
initiated by the Foundation.
One of the most visible marks the Foundation made on the
city was in the area of city parks. In 1967 there were only
540 dunams of parks; today that figure stands at over 1,600.
It includes the National Park around the Old City walls, the
Wohl Rose Park near the Knesset, the Hebrew University Botanical
Gardens, and over 200 other neighborhood parks and gardens,
most of which display the Foundation's ubiquitous tulip symbol
etched modestly on stone in a corner of the park.
One of the biggest projects of the city was the building
of the Haas and Sherover Promenades along the East Talpiot
ridge. Kollek relates how here, too, the idea came from the
architect Kahn.
"The government and the city wanted to build four or five
high-rise hotels that would overlook the city. And I said
what should we build here, and he said, 'I'll give you advice:
don't build anything. Leave it empty.' This is how the promenade
came about, which is a great success of the city."
Another success was the building of the Jerusalem Center
for the Performing Arts, the complex in Talbiyeh that houses
the 900-seat Jerusalem Sherover Theater, the 750-seat Henry
Crown Symphony Hall, which is the home of the Jerusalem Symphony
Orchestra; the 450-seat Rebecca Crown Auditorium; and a 150-seat
theater in the basement.
This complex, Kollek says, is one of his proudest accomplishments.
"It had been started in the former city administration but
was abandoned because they didn't have the money to finish.
I remember when we started, we had a concert in a hole in
the ground, we brought the Israel Philharmonic there. It was
started by Mr. Sherover, before he passed away, but the money
that he gave, through inflation, wasn't sufficient, so I had
to raise the rest. So we added the Henry Crown Hall to it,
which was entirely paid by the Crown family in Chicago, through
the Jerusalem Foundation."
A major area developed after the '67 war was the strip of
land that had been the border between Jordan and Israel. Today
it is the scene of over 20 different types of activities,
on what is known as Jerusalem's "Cultural Mile." It includes
the museum in David's Tower; Hutzot Hayotzer, an arts and
crafts center; Hassenfeld Amphitheater in Sultan's Pool; the
renovated neighborhood and artist colony of Yemin Moshe, and
alongside it Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the first building constructed
outside the Old City in 1860.
Adjacent is the Jerusalem Music Center, which teaches young
Israeli hopefuls. Below, in the Hinnom Valley, is the Cinematheque/Jerusalem
Film Center, and facing it the Alpert Youth Music Center,
home to the Jerusalem Youth Orchestra made up of Israeli and
Arab youth. Further along Hebron Road is the Khan Theater,
a former Crusader and Turkish inn.
Today there is more construction happening all over the city,
as the capital prepares to meet the needs of the next century.
It, too, will change the face of the city, adding to what
has already been the largest expansion in the city's 3,000-year
history.
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