Ponte City: The story behind the rebirth of the New York City of Africa.

"Johannesburg is not falling apart – it is in the process of rebirth after the demise of a white city.”

Former City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor Geoff Makhubo (July 2021)

For many people, The idea of exploring downtown Johannesburg is as appealing as stumbling into a minefield. However, you’d be mad to miss out on getting to know downtown Johannesburg as public art, renovated buildings and commercial savvy breath vibrant life back into the heart of the city of gold.

Looming large over the inner city is one of South Africa's most famous structures: The 54-storey Ponte City. As we bid farewell to former executive mayor of Johannesburg, Makhubo, it is perhaps important to learn a thing or two about the process of rebirth –as evident in the story of the the rebirth of the New York City of Africa. Afterall, we all want the manifestation of a World Class African City.

A year before the 1976 massacre, Ponte City was built in the Hillbrow district. When built, Ponte City was seen as an extremely desirable address due to its views over all of Johannesburg and its surroundings. Originally built to house around 3500 people, Ponte City is the tallest residential tower in Africa, standing at 54-storeys with a completely hollow core. On a clear day, the view from the 52nd floor can stretch to neighbouring city Pretoria where you can see Unisa's main campus building.

Ponte city was built exclusively as a luxury building for the city's white elite during the height of Apartheid. The building had spacious apartments, a shopping mall, a movie theatre and even a bowling alley. It was meant to be a "village" within the city where residents wouldn't have to leave. Ponte was conceptualized as a modern ‘city within a city’ by its designers.

"Ponte is a potent symbol of the rebirth of Johannesburg –a reevaluation and appreciation of the inner city of South Africa’s financial capital" 

By the late 1980s, as white South Africans fled the inner city, the building was hijacked by squatters.

Then, in the 1990s, the end of apartheid in South Africa meant that anyone could move into the formerly whites-only downtown. Hillbrow became an epicenter for this newfound freedom. Jobless immigrants from other African countries turned the neighborhood – like the rest of downtown Johannesburg – into an ungovernable place.

Many downtown building owners gave up on their properties when they weren't able to collect rent from tenants, or couldn't control the crowds of people forcing their way into each apartment. Some apartment complexes were "hijacked" by gangs who blocked owners from entering and forced tenants to pay them instead.

By the mid '90s, Hillbrow, home to immigrants from the rest Africa – became rife with drugs, poverty, prostitution, gun crime. It's murder and rape rates were worse than almost any place in the world. Many gangs moved into the building and it became extremely unsafe. A building that was built to accommodate 3500 people suddely had over 10 000 people living in it. According to Gilbert Mwape, a tour guide who also lives in the building, "People used to tell their kids that if they didn't do well at school they'd end up at Ponte. If you lived in the building, it meant you'd failed in life"

By the late 1990s there were plans to turn Ponte into a prison. The plan did not pass. In 2001, Ponte City began a journey to redemption. With the help of the Red Ants, the owners cleared out the illegal residents over a period of three years. 

In 2007, two foreign investors, David Selvan and Noor Ayoub, with their eye on opportunities relating to the 2010 Fifa World Cup, started a big renovation project to turn Ponte into a luxury-apartment building. However, the investors left in 2008 amid the global financial crisis and growing xenophobic tensions without completing the renovations they started. The Kempston Group took over the renovations and completed them in 2012.

After years of renovation, Ponte was eventually restored to its former glory. With shops operating at the foot of the building, children chatting in the corridors, students and young professionals passing through, it's a far cry from what it once was.

Ponte is an ideal setting for movies. It is for this reason that US rapper, Drake, shot his music video at the bottom of the building's seven-level parking lot. Scenes from feature films such as Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009) and Chappie (2015) were shot in and around Ponte, and the tower is an ever-present backdrop in films about the underbelly of Johannesburg, such as Tsotsi (2005) and Jerusalema (2008). Philip Bloom’s Ponte Tower (2012) and Ingrid Martens Africa Shafted (2011) are recent documentary films about the building and include srories about those who live in it. Novels such as Norman Ohler’s Stadt des Goldes [City of Gold] (2003) have been set in Ponte.

Ponte City Today:

• 54 storeys
• 173m high
• 484 apartments
• 2,500 - The maximum number of residents allowed
• 54 languages recorded in the building during the making of a 2011 documentary
• Eight elevators, four servicing floors 0 to 34 to and the other four servicing floors 34 to 52

TAKE THE TOUR

The view is spectacular. Clothes lines are spun across rooftops and satellite dishes stick to the sides of buildings like a covering of moss between slits of windows. It's Hillbrow to our left, Yeoville to the right, Berea at our feet and the opulence of Rosebank and Sandton in the distance

The 90-minute Ponte City Experience tour is R300 for a public tour booked through the website and R350 for a private tour booked directly. Capped at five people per tour, they are available on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The 25-minute virtual Hillbrow tour is R250 for 24-hour access via a URL. See dlalanje.org.




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Reference:

Jeff Makhubo "Johannesburg is not falling apart — it is in the process of rebirth after the demise of a white city" July 2021
Www.dailymaverick.co.za

Sanet Oberholzer "The full Ponte: Take a tour of a Joburg icon" July 2020
www.timeslive.co.za

Lucille Davie "Ponte: revival of a Joburg icon" November 2007
web.archive.org

David Smith "Johannesburg's Ponte City: 'the tallest and grandest urban slum in the world'" March 2016
Www.theguardian.com