In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie reveals the deep connection that famous author Herman Charles Bosman had for the spaces and places of Johannesburg. The article was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 21 January 2004. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
Herman Charles Bosman watched as they demolished the old Magistrate's Courts in downtown Joburg. And felt "a kind of silent fury".
He wrote in his essay Old Johannesburg is Vanishing that the municipality had "no understanding of Johannesburg, no veneration for this city".
He went on: "I don't suppose, for one thing, that they've got too many genuine Joh'burg old-timers on the Council. Otherwise we wouldn't have every Johannesburg building turned over to a demolition-gang the moment it becomes historical."
His frustrations are an expression of his enjoyment of the city. The city where he wrote most of his work, becoming one of South Africa's most popular short story writers. In a series of short essays in Bosman's Johannesburg, Bosman reminisces about "Old Joh'burg", where he lived in the early 1920s and again in the 1930s and 40s.
He had good times in the city: rioting on the steps of the City Hall, visiting the city's pubs, seeking out old Joburgers and getting their perspectives, living on the edge of the CBD, walking the pavements and riding the trams. He was as familiar with Market Street, Commissioner Street or Rissik Street; Kensington, Lombardy East or Berea as any present Joburger.
The article below, written by journalist and Joburg explorer Lucille Davie, looks at the layered history and significance of Johannesburg's markets over the years. It was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 9 January 2004. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
Just 118 years ago the Johannesburg CBD was flat, patchy grassland, interspersed with rocky outcrops and an occasional stream and one or two farmhouses. Then gold was found in 1886 and a town was born, taking its shape from the largest square in the country, market square.
The old mining works at the site where the main reef was discovered (The Heritage Portal)
Six blocks in all, market square stretched from Rissik Street in the east to Sauer Street in the west, bordered by President and Market streets. According to Johannesburg – One Hundred Years (1986), “Depending on the weather, the square and streets were either unattended dustbowls or strips of churned-up mud dotted with pools. There were always wagon tracks and horse and ox droppings.”
The eastern portion of the square became a produce and general dealers’ market, while the western half was a cattle market.
By 1895 shops, offices, and banks appeared on its perimeter. In 1888...
From 1989-1991 a major project unfolded in the historic centre of Johannesburg. It was known as the Civic Spine Project and aroused considerable debate. Below is an article from the 1991 edition of Restorica which looks at arguments on all sides of the controversy. Thank you to the University of Pretoria and the Heritage Association of South Africa (HASA) for giving us permission to publish.
The water feature between the Rissik Street Post Office and the City Hall still exists in 2016 after being restored in 2011. The controversial structures in Beyers Naude Square were removed at the same time.
Seldom in the history of Johannesburg has a project of a public nature sparked as much controversy as the Civic Spine in the centre of town. Some hate it, others think they may grow to love it.
What it looks like
The Civic Spine project stretches from the Rissik Street Post Office to the City Library. An imposing water feature was erected in the centre of Rissik Street. In the Library Gardens provision has been made for two upmarket restaurants on top of a line of kiosks flanking the gardens along President and Market Streets, where more than 200 trees were planted along the widened and paved sidewalks. The Civic Spine is intended to give the CBD a tree-lined focal point. It runs from the piazza in front of the Library through extensively redesigned gardens and two new fast food outlets above the underground car park access ramps on either side of...
