Walking Downtown Jozi: A Photo Story
There are many tales of woe in Joburg right now: building fires, exploding streets, absent mayors, water outages, an ever-widening wealth gap, and a general spiral of doom. And these stories aren’t exaggerated. The struggle is real, people…The city is in a dire situation and it’s hard to stay positive sometimes.
But a walk through town with JoburgPlaces is a great antidote to the Jozi blues.
Last weekend, Thorsten and I took Thorsten’s parents on the JoburgPlaces “Fashion District and Little Addis” walking tour. I’ve walked through (and blogged about) these parts of downtown Jozi many times, but it never gets old or repetitive. Things are always changing. And it’s comforting to see that despite all of the inner city’s problems, people are still getting on with their lives.
Here are some pictures. I’ve divided my post into several points of interest – just a selection of the things we saw during our four-hour tour.
Point of Interest #1: Old Johannesburg Stock Exchange
Our tour, led by Jozi expert Charlie Moyo, started at the old Johannesburg Stock Exchange building at 17 Diagonal Street. This building was the fifth of six different buildings that the JSE has occupied since 1887, and it was the last stock exchange building in the Joburg inner city before the JSE moved to its current home in Sandton in 2000.
Charlie took us onto the old JSE trading floor, which has been frozen in time for the past 23 years.
Read a bit more about the old JSE building in this 2019 post about secret places in Joburg.
Point of Interest #2: Kerk Street Market
Kerk Street is a pedestrianized street running right through the center of downtown Joburg, where street vendors sell fruit and veg and a variety of other items. I’ve taken many photos on Kerk Street over the years (see some in this post); it was good to see the market is still going strong.
Point of Interest #3: Jozi Fashion District
I’ve written extensively about Jozi’s Fashion District (see here and here and here) but I always love taking photos there. Here are my two favorites from this outing.
Point of Interest #4: Little Addis
I’ve also written extensively about “Little Addis”, the maze of Ethiopian shops and restaurants – mostly inside a former medical building – on Rahima Moosa Street in downtown Jozi. So I won’t repeat myself. But this place is always a delight to visit and photograph.
Point of Interest #5: The old Joburg Sun
The old Joburg Sun hotel, like the Carlton Hotel a few blocks away, is a great Joburg mystery. Opened as a luxury hotel in 1985, with 672 rooms, the Joburg Sun closed only 13 years later and has been mothballed ever since. I don’t know a single person who has been inside the Joburg Sun since it closed, although many have tried. I’m so curious to know what it looks like in there.
It boggles my mind that a building this huge, which could house thousands of people in a city with one of the world’s most acute housing crises, has been sitting empty for the past 25 years. But such is life in Jozi: fascinating, confounding, maddening, heartbreaking. I’m still in love with this place.
This was a good tour. To book a JoburgPlaces walk of your own, contact Gerald at [email protected] or +27-82-894-5216 (WhatsApp only).
That little green space outside the JSE building is a hidden gem. I did once come across someone who had been inside the Sun hotel since it’s closing will see if I can find the pics. I was told the reason why this hotel and the Carlton are still standing empty and not repurposed is the fact that there are no windows that open so either that has to change which is not so easy on the Sun Hotel or it has to run on an upgraded air conditioning system - too costly and what with our electricity woes!
Yeah, what a bummer that the windows were designed that way! Someone else just messaged me and said a similar thing.
I’ve moved down to the WC 13 years ago, but still when asked will say ‘ I’m from Joeys’ and proudly so…glad to see the positivity and the vibrancy is still strong..
Thanks Alex. We’ve got our challenges but the vibrancy is still here!
The Old Joburg Sun Hotel boggles my mind, too, although there are a huge number of empty luxury apartments in downtown LA that were bought by rich citizens of Asia and Russia to preserve their capital. Plus plenty of second homes near the beach. It’s absolutely maddening.
Yeah, American cities aren’t immune to these problems either. It’s just more drastic here.
I always love your positive attitude. Your intro about Joeys reminds me of some of the comments about Chicago lately. And I think your idea about the empty hotel is so smart. I wish they would do it (as is happening with SOME (but not nearly enough) of closed schools and motels for the migrants here.
Yeah, American cities have serious problems too – I’ve been shocked by some of the news stories I’ve heard lately. It’s all just a lot more acute here.
The memories I have of traveling into the City with a heart of gold every day using the Gautrain and buses. Always such a vibrant place but also very sad experiences when I used to see so many poor people everywhere. If only they could fix JoBurg up and get things right :-(
A good thing to do during these dire times. xo
Yes :)
I love that ceiling fresco. We saw that style in churches in Ethiopia, the stylised heads and shoulders and repeat figures. I thought it was just a religious style. Great to see it in a secular setting.
Yeah, I’ve also seen it in the Ethiopian church in Bertrams and was pleasantly surprised to see it again here.
You are a scribe for a (barely) walking dead city. Bless you.
Haha, thanks.
This is super lovely - an amazing blog. Your positive vibe regarding our “dead” Jo’burg! All we can do is to pray hard and wish for good administration in the future for that beautiful “City of Gold” of ours!
Thanks so much :)
Hi Heather. Greetings from Jakarta, Indonesia. I stumbled upon your blog via other blogs when I was blogwalking, letting myself being carried away by one person’s story after another. South Africa has been that country which I have always wanted to visit but haven’t got the chance (or timing) to do exactly that: visit. I must admit, Cape Town is usually what comes on top of my wish list, although Johannesburg is particularly intriguing. It’s really great to read about the city from the perspective of someone who actually lives there. I will slowly read your earlier posts about this fascinating country with the hope that eventually I find myself going there. Thank you for writing and sharing your stories!
PS, I love the term blogwalking.