| Florentin
Flavour by Daniel Sekel and Danielle Haas |
The Jerusalem Report, April 2, 1998
The search for an affordable inner-city flat is leading many home-hunters to old neighborhoods that are being revived.
"YOU WANT TO LIVE here? Are you crazy?" shouts the man from the doorway of his furniture repair shop. He clamps a broken chair to his bench, and begins to work the fabric quickly over the edges with dark, sinewy fingers. "Listen," he says, "Florentin's a dangerous neighborhood, full of criminals, robbers, drug addicts. If you want to live somewhere, why not try one of those fancy new suburbs in North Tel Aviv? I tell you, as soon as I finish for the day, I shut the shop and go home. I never hang around." He stares balefully at the gray, empty streets. "Ask anyone."
We have come to Florentin on a flat-hunting fantasy, in search of an affordable inner-city apartment. After a year and a half in Jerusalem, of high rents ($750 a month for a cold, two-bedroom flat with pigeons roosting in the window boxes, leaking windows and dodgy wiring) and limited work opportunities, we were exploring a move to Tel Aviv, where life is more upbeat.
We'd heard good things about Florentin, in Tel Aviv's tangled southern suburbs. Established in 1929 and named after Greek Zionist David Florentin, the neighborhood of small commercial enterprises and 1930s residential blocks is undergoing something of a regentrification. Florentin is referred to as "up-and-coming," "trendy" and full of "character" - an image recently reinforced by a TV drama series of the same name, an Israeli "Friends," about funky twentysomethings having a whale of a time.
We are introduced to the wonders of Florentin by real-estate agent Sarah Segal, who has just come back from a dozen years in New York and lives in the area. Segal speaks with genuine feeling about her new home, saying Manhattan's not even in the same league. "It's a great place, especially for young people," she enthuses, turning to talk to us when her small car gets stuck in a traffic jam during the drive across town. "People are surprised to hear that I, an older, professional person, live there. Most professionals live in North Tel Aviv. But I love the atmosphere, and the color."
At first, though, it's difficult to pick out Florentin's robust charm. We drive into the area via a series of drab back streets, lined with cinder-block walls smeared with grease and graffiti. At the entrance to Florentin an old hotel, freshly painted a garish yellow, looms above us. Our way is blocked by a huge, belching fumes in the rain, as a small forklift spins around it to unload blocks of wood. "You need a little patience," says Segal, honking the horn. "In a few years, it will be much nicer. You need a vision for the future." We all shudder as something - perhaps the forklift, perhaps a block of wood, crashes against the side of the car. Segal gets out to check; we're relieved to hear there's no damage.
WE BEGIN TO WARM TO THE place after we park the car. The sidewalk is lined with factories and repair shops and the damp air is filled with a cacophony of sounds - machines and saws, hammering and drilling. Through dark doorways, we glimpse cobblers and upholsterers, seamstresses and carpenters at work. Stacks of derelict furniture, bolts of carpets and garlands of shoes seem to grow out of the pavement, covered by greenhouse-like sheets of clear plastic. An ancient, rusty Yamaha motorcycle is parked next to a shining-new BMW bike. Strolling locals drift through the slow-moving traffic without a trace of concern.
Segal has picked out three apartments from her computer at the agency, all renovated. From the street, the uniformly rectangular structures are not very promising. Their gray-stucco outer walls look moth-eaten, in some places they've been worn away to the bare bricks by decades of exposure to the sea air. Only the rounded art-deco balconies, overflowing with washing and household junk, add life and color. We expect the worst as we climb a gloomy stairwell decorated with faded prints of Swiss mountain villages.
But we're pleasantly surprised. The entrance to the first apartment (asking price $155,000) is bright and airy, with an arresting pattern of tiles across the floor. On one side of the corridor, there's a large bedroom with built-in cupboards, the other, a compact bathroom sporting new porcelain fittings, and fetching, if somewhat deflated balloons. The hallway ends in an open-plan living room and kitchen, with soft winter light filtering in from a bank of windows. At the kitchen table, a young man in sweatpants hunches over a pile of books. There are also more balloons.
"It was my birthday a week ago," he mumbles, making a furious effort to appear engrossed in his studies. We love the window boxes filled with potted plants, and the painted blue shutters - much more than the view of neighboring apartment blocks.
The second apartment is both cheaper, at $150,00, and more promising, though not without its hazards. The exterior of the apartment block, which we're told was completely renovated last year, is painted a funky brick-red. As we mount the steps, a ghoulish creature with a squashed-in face and bat-like ears springs out at us. The door opens and a young woman, pressing a phone to one ear, drags her dog back into her flat.
We edge past her into a large, dimly lit vestibule, decorated with modish wire artwork and large B-movie posters. On either side are doors to the bedrooms, and a small toilet is folded into the curve of a wall. Directly ahead is the kitchen, into which the woman has now sealed herself, still talking on the phone, with the dog in tow.
"This is probably the best deal in Florentin at the moment," says Segal, of the 70-square-meter, two-bedroom apartment with living room. Even though the current recession has made house-hunting more of a buyers' market, it's still tough in Florentin. "Most people want to hold on to their properties as rental investments," she says, suggesting that we could knock down the wall that separates the entrance hall from the kitchen, to create a larger space. Wouldn't we have to get permission from the local council and the other owners? She laughs. "Of course not! If you had to wait for council approval here, you'd never get it done!"
Each bedroom is cluttered with an almost theatrical profusion of personal effects - stacks of books, and provocative photos of the two flatmates tacked next to an old shapshot of a Sephardi miracle-worker. Perfume bottles of all shapes cover makeshift shelves. Each room has its own balcony, cluttered with bicycles and broken furniture.
Mesmerized, we watch as a woman in the opposite apartment applies make-up, oblivious to our presence. "It reminds me of how Tel Aviv used to be," says Segal, "when everyone knew everyone. It's a kind of theater: Who needs TV?"
A third three-room apartment - for rent, at $600 a month, about average for the area and 15-20 percent less than fancier parts of town - is less appealing. The echoing rooms, spacious and high-ceilinged, are too dark for our tastes.ý
WE'VE HAD OUR FILL OF apartments, for the time being, and hit the streets to get a sense of the area. The eye is drawn by recent renovations: Fresh-painted and pink-tiled facades, with more than a hint of Florida about them, are juxtaposed with the cracked and fading originals. The street-level stores are filled with expensive, country-style furniture and modish light-stands, with names like "Mimosa" and "The Loft." From a tiny doorway, little more than a burrow in a wall, an old cobbler smiles at us with bright, rheumy eyes. He's virtually buried beneath a mountain of crusty boots and shoes, which look like they were abandoned decades before. He looks at our feet. "Do you need help?" he asks hopefully.
Baruch, 60, from Bukhara, has worked in Florentin for over 40 years. And even if our shoes are OK, he does want to do some business. "I know a guy who wants to sell his apartment," he says, anxiously. "Tell him Baruch sent you."
We nod agreement for the sake of politeness.
Just around the corner, we spot a dusty window with "London Apholstery" in peeling letters on the store-front. A dapper-looking man in a carpenter's smock introduces himself as Mr. Ben-Mashiah, and says he knows that the sign is wrong. "I wanted my customers to know that I do quality work, so I called my shop London Upholstery. Only, I got the spelling wrong. I haven't changed the sign; it attracts more attention this way."
Ben-Mashiah, who's been in Florentin for 14 years, isn't so sure about the grand regentrification idea. "Let me tell you about the renovations. Five years ago Shlomo Lahat, the former mayor of Tel Aviv, went to Paris for a holiday and got culture. When he came back, he announced that Florentin reminded him of the Left Bank. City Hall got all excited, and started to build everywhere. In the end, though, the new building petered out; all that was left was a big mess. Sure, they're still renovating a building here or there. But the Left Bank?"
Well, perhaps not. But Segal says the municipality has committed funds to urban renewal within Florentin, and a pleasant pedestrian way is under construction along the central streets, which will increase the aesthetic appeal of the neighborhood. "In five years, the place will look very different," says Segal. "There will be more furniture stores, restaurants and cafes." So while Florentin may never look exactly like the Left Bank, residents and visitors will at least be assured of a little French polish, and a decent cafe au lait.
With permission from The Jerusalem Report