On Tuesday evening, South Point properties invited me to check out 56 Jorissen Street, a brand-new, high-rise student residence in Braamfontein. The whole building is beautiful — I almost wished I could become an 18-year-old college student again and move in. But the major highlight, of course, was the 16th-floor roof deck with nearly 360-degree views of Braamfontein and the rest of Joburg.
It was a beautiful late summer day — warm, with puffy white clouds scattered across the sky. I got to catch up with several of my best Joburg-loving friends, have a glass of wine and some canapés, and take tons of photos of the Joburg skyline. Basically it was a perfect evening — the kind of evening I might have taken for granted a year ago but never will again.
For an hour or two I forgot all about the pandemic, the poverty, the police brutality, the power and water outages, and all of the problems in this city and this country and this world. It was blissful.
Here are the pictures.
Thanks to South Point for the media invite. You made my week.
Have a fabulous weekend, everyone.
Rush hour in downtown Joburg here looks like a very poor likeness of what it once was! Today I could not get to Muizenberg beach to try out my brand new (wooden) surfboard, and I live only 2km away.
Yes. Traffic is starting to come back but it is still WAAAAAAAY less than it was before the pandemic, which is awesome but also weirdly sad.
A real rush hour in Braam is around 17:00 with a cloud burst and not getting to Wits on time for a 18:00 seminar from near the Civic Centre.
(Will in person seminars ever be a thing again??)
Good question ????????♀️
That’s gorgeous.
It is!
Lovely pics Heather, from a lovely new building. 🙂
I used to be very familiar with Braamfontein – working just opposite the Civic Centre from 1992 to 2014 – walking it and watching it pick itself up from a real down; had many favourite coffee shops … I visited regularly mostly on a Saturday thereafter. Now I haven’t been there for more than a year and have completely missed the transformation of the corner with the new building… I hope it continues with its renewal and that it is well loved and looked after.
Wow you worked there for a long time! It must have been interesting watching the transformation.
It looks lovely. What school is it a dorm for?
It’s mostly fir Wits but I think some UJ students live there too.