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Ron Arad
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Tag Archives: פלורנטין
cities and eyes
A few more photos from the disposable camera project. I like the way these turned out – not sharp, slightly hazy. They feel more photographlike. I also liked that there was a limited number of pictures on the roll, and that once one was taken there was no way to see how it turned out. You took the photo, then it was over. It was somehow liberating.
I am going to take a break now for a while. I have been thinking of doing this for a while. I need to think about new projects.
bieber fever
A Justin Bieber (that prepubescent tweenybopper) craze has hit Israel, ahead of his upcoming gig here in Tel Aviv this Passover. His face is everywhere: posters, magazines, specially designed t-shirts in the windows of fashion stores. I overhear people talking about him in the streets. Are their kids going? Are your kids going? It’s all good.
almost symmetry, branded
Around Rehov Maon, Florentine
These are iPhone snaps taken of the craziness that is the area between Abarbanel Street and Elifelet Street in south Tel Aviv. It’s an area of workshops – some of which are used for nightclubs – that has not been developed at all, not yet anyway (this area is slated for total redevelopment, especially given its prime location.)
Does anyone know about Right-to-Left support for WordPress? And is it possible to mix RTL and LTR languages on the same page? I wanted to write the posts in Hebrew as well as English, but find that RTL languages do not work here, the words get mixed up, punctuation appears mysteriously only at the end of sentences and editing is a nightmare. I tried forcing it using HTML but to no avail. I dislike writing only in English, but I don’t want to change this to a Hebrew-only site as then it will limit who can read it…
community outreach
Washington Boulevard and Rehov Abulafya, Florentin, south Tel Aviv.
For those fond of maps (like me) here’s one showing where this is.
cities & eyes
Chaim Ben Atar street, Florentin, just before twilight.
urban decay, urban renewal
The next few posts are photos taken around the southern part of Florentin, which is decidedly seedier than the northern half. I should know, because I lived there when I first moved to Israel – in the ground floor part of a renovated factory, on a muddy alley with no name, sandwiched between a nightclub, a Russian karaoke bar and two dodgy gambling joints.
These shots are on or around Abulafia Street, which is gradually being transformed from a slum (which it still is) to a trendy place for designers including Kastiel
This is a typical scene – an apartment block in the Bauhaus style, left to decay.
House sign, “Abulafia 7a” hand made in Hebrew and Arabic. Abulafia is both an Arabic and a Jewish name. It’s a prominent name in Tel Aviv-Jaffa because of the famous Abulafia Arab bakery on Yefet street that draws huge crowds every day.
on kishon street
I think this old apartment epitomizes a sense of Florentin quirkiness – something that is disappearing rapidly as this neighbourhood grows and packs in more people into newly-built “built for rental investment” apartment blocks.
meet the locals
A couple of locals at a neighborhood coffee shop. The dog is a labrador crossed with something larger. He’s aged around 2. The owner found him wandering the streets a year ago, and managed to contact the owners. They didn’t want the dog. So he kept him. The dog wanders around the coffee shop to say hello to everyone.
Dogs are popular here and they are allowed into restaurants, cafes etc. There are a few local characters with dogs. There was one guy – I haven’t seen him lately – who had six huge white dogs. They would travel in a pack. I’d see them – the dogs not the guy – cooling off by splashing around in the fountain near the Hassan Bek Mosque.
