Cost R230 per person   To book email gerald@joburgplaces.com Tel 082 894 5216

* Sat …5th Nov at 14.00 Join Parktown Heritage Association for the last Jacaranda Walk of 2011; park at the La Roche offices, 54 The Valley Road; no booking necessary; R40; stunning views of Parktown & Forest Town; more info phone 011 482-3349 

OR
* Meet at Arts on Main at 9.30 on 5th Nov for an Inner City Walk exploring the east of the city

And if you have explored the east of the city on Saturday with Main Street Walks, then you can explore the west with Walk and Talk Tours on Sunday.  Meet at Museum Africa Bree Street Johannesburg at 8am.  The walk will be approximately two to three hours.  The route will go Mary Fitzgerald square, Newtown,  past the old stock exchange,  going past the City Hall, Rand Club, Library Gardens, Corner House, Rissik Street Post Office, also going up Main Street Mall, Hollard Street, Standard Bank Mine Stope – also with a special visit to two to three buildings in Kruis and President Streets.  enquiries@walktours.co.za Cell: +27 83 269 9769

* and for something very different look for mushrooms and fungi (yes, I did say Fungi!) at the Kloofendal Nature Reserve Two-hour walk from 9am led by Bernice Porter, a fungi expert. Contact Karin Spottiswoode 011-674-2980 or 072-595-6991  

Rosemary and Barbara about to tuck into traditional Ethiopian fare

 Following on Jonathan Liebmann’s development of the Maboneng precint in the south east of Joburg, with its flagship space Arts on Main, Braamfontein is also being revitalized. Nechama Brodie in her article entitled Regenerate Behaviour: Making the City Sexy,  in this week’s Mail and Guardian,  http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-16-regenerate-behaviour-making-the-city-sexy, writes about the new developments in Braamfontein.   Two friends and I went along yesterday to the Neighbourhoods Market (every Saturday 9-3 at 93 Juta St). Very impressed with the many attendants directing us to the tucked away location and to undercover parking – made it a pleasure to find.  Modelled on the Biscuit Mill in Cape Town, there is a definite buzz and hype around this market.  

 A series of wooden trestle tables and benches allows for a long informal  communal eating space between the food stalls. Peach and cherry blossoms in large glass jars give fabulous spring colour on the tables while above hang vibrant Gerberas in glass bottles. And then there are food stalls to die for – amazing olives; genuine Buffalo mozarella; cupcakes that are a feast for the eye, sheer heaven on the taste buds and devastating for the hips. There are giant pizzas, huge pans of paella, baskets of spring rolls and samoosas, selections of cheeses, mouthwatering vegetarian dishes and amazing mushrooms kebabs with every kind of speciality mushroom you could wish for.   

And surrounding the unprepossessing building which houses the Neighbourhoods market on its 1st and 2nd floor, are signs of more urban upgrades. In Melle St is The Grove, a great outside space with trees,  bright mural art,  giant TV screen and outdoor tables for Velo, which serves breakfasts and dinners.  And around are a number of newly upgraded buildings, refurbished as student acccommodation by South Point Developers.   

All these developments, together with the new Wits Art Museum which is in process of being constructed in the old Lawsons’ building on the corner of Jan Smuts and Jorissen St,  are set to make this area a really vibrant and viable inner city living and destination space.

Arts on Main and Main Street Life all form part of the development of the ‘Maboneng Precinct’ and the latest addition is Revolution House  which will provide larger open plan residential spaces as well as commercial spaces including band rehearsal rooms and film studios.  For the months of June and July, Maboneng Precinct is offering these spaces for free for shoots, rehearsals and recordings so that they can get public feedback – great initiative.

But best news of all there are some exciting walking tours:  

Fietas: Fietas is made up of two small suburbs – Pageview and Vrededorp – and used to be a multiracial area until the late 1970s when most of the residents were relocated to far away suburbs in the apartheid scheme of separating the races under the Group Areas Act. The two-and-a-half hour trail is led by former residents and includes the nearby Braamfontein cemetery. (Saturday September 25 and Sunday September 26. Bookings on 082 447 8080. R80 per person)

City Centre Walking Tour by Atelier Altshuler: More than 50 sites are highlighted in a city that is vibrant with activity. The selection of items includes a mixture of old and new structures that provide clues to the development of Johannesburg from a late Victorian and early Edwardian town, to a neoclassical and early modern city, to a modern and art deco metropolis, to a late modern and post modern megalopolis, to a current old and current new metropole. The tour lasts three-and-a-half hours and starts at Museum Africa in Newtown. (The walk is conducted from 14h00 to 17h30 on Saturday, September 25 and from 9h30 to 13h00 and 14h00 to 17h30 on Sunday September 26. Cost is R100 with a reduced price of R80 for students. For the walk the South African Council for the Architectural Profession Category 1 CPD Credit Value is 0.4 credit. Bookings on 011 442-7584)

Constitution Hill tour: See the art and architecture of the area with tour guides Jane Lane, curator of the art collection of the Court and Paul Wygers, architect from Omm Design Workshop, architects of the Court. (The tour starts in front of the Court building on Saturday September 25 at 15h00 and on Sunday, September 26. They take 90 minutes. Cost is R150 which includes drinks and refreshments at the bookstore afterwards. Booking with Melissa Kruger on 074 5666 704. Constitution Hill is situated on the corner of Hospital and Sam Hancock Streets in Braamfontein. Parking is available in the basement and on the site with access from Hospital and Joubert Streets.)

Marianne Fassler Maboneng and Mai Mai walking tour – Designer Marianne Fassler leads this informative tour. The Maboneng Precinct is located in the eastern quarter of Johannesburg’s historic Central Business District. Maboneng (Place of Lights) refers to the city’s humble beginnings as a mining camp. It includes Jewel City, across the road from Arts on Main, which is the headquarters of South Africa’s diamond industry. The nearby Mai Mai Bazaar is the oldest traditional African market in Johannesburg and has operated since 1920. (Meet at Canteen at Arts on Main at 11am on Saturday, September 25. R70 per person (cash on the day). Book with Faeeza Khan on 082 648 9781.

Dinner at the Turbine Hall in May

Anglo- Gold Ashanti has done an amazing job of redeveloping Joburg’s first power station, including the orginal space which housed the massive turbines.  Located in Newtown this development is a very succesful example of sustainable and sensitive adaptive re-use of  industrial heritage. I have written about this before: http://lizatlancaster.co.za/blog/the-old-and-the-new-more-on-anglogold-ashantis-turbine-square    If you missed the last evening at The Restaurant at the Turbine Hall book your seat now for 2nd October.  It’s a great evening – get a table together of 6 to 8 people, go along and listen to Christopher Duigan playing Chopin and have a fab dinner.   It is not cheap at R400 per person but it’s a special evening:  sophisticated,  hip and a great way to see and experience Joburg’s first power station!!   

See  http://lizatlancaster.co.za/blog/fiftytwo-no-18-chill-out-amongst-the-turbines-this-friday-night  

Contact Hhlaka Mathemnjwa on 011 575 3890 or email dinners@theforum.co.za 

Engaging with local artists who mainly operate in the surrounding precinct, the developers of the hotel asked different artists to each design a room that would reflect a decade in the history of the city’s 120 years. This has led to an interactive hotel that engages its guests with the dynamic history of the city, good and bad.    The room numbers of the 12 rooms, which offer a comfortable mid-market stay, are the same as the decade they reflect. Each en-suite room comprises a large bedroom with small kitchenette. A restaurant will soon open downstairs that will cater for guests’ needs and a roof-top pool, sky bar and boxing gym will soon be completed.  The hotel is located in the same building, Main Street Life, as Malva retail store and The Bioscope, which regularly features art house films and hosts film festivals.