Haifa that is presented to guests and Haifa that residents live in • The Stairs District as an example • Opinion column

A city for guests and a city for residents

Apartment for guests only

Many years ago I arrived at an apartment in a dreary and dreary train housing. I was sent to get trays of refreshments for the graduation party of the school where my daughters attended. I went up to the second floor and entered a small and cramped apartment. I was standing in the hallway near the kitchen, in front of it was a small room whose walls were bare and faded and in which was a large bed and a bedspread in which lay two small children watching a large television screen that hung above them. The woman I met was in the midst of cooking in a small kitchen that seemed to be left over from the time the building was built. She wiped her hands with the apron around her waist and ordered me to come with her to get the trays from another place.

I walked with her in the corridor of the same floor, she pulled a key from her pocket and stuck it in the lock of a nearby apartment door. When she opened the door, she saw a clean, whitewashed and polished apartment. In the living room there were armchairs and sofas in the style of Louis XVI, painted gold and upholstered in a shiny cloth in royal blue and light blue. The furniture was covered with clear plastic sheets to protect it. A chandelier filled with candle-shaped bulbs dangled from the ceiling and the whole look was the antithesis of the apartment we were in a moment ago. The large trays of refreshments that were well covered with cling film waited on the gilded living room table with sculpted legs that stood in the center of the room. A new kitchen overlooks the open space and next to it is a dining area made of heavy wood and upholstered chairs that was also wrapped in plastic.

I couldn't resist and asked curiously: "Do you live here?"
"No," said the woman, "this is the guest apartment." In the second I live.'

Stairs for guests. And the rest are just residents

This memory came to my mind when the "Stairway District" events were celebrated this week with much joy. It is important for me to say that I am full of appreciation for the curator of the project, Tzala Kotler Hadari, who did the wonder of turning water into wine together with a community of talented artists who work all the time and with tireless optimism to promote art and culture in Haifa. It seems that a lot of thinking, great creativity and seriousness were invested in the artistic and creative performances on the Gedera and Gamla steps. The texts that represent the performances are poetic and uplift the soul and thought.

The stairways of Haifa

Everything looked cool and wonderful, crowds of people arrived at the winner's stairs on days that are usually quiet, with the exception of the few people who use them because of living in the area or hearing about Haifa's stair tracks. A few years ago, crowds came to the stair race held once a year. An event that received enormous interest and the arrival of many thousands who came to run from the bottom of the city to the heights of the Carmel center.

After they left - everything went back to normal

Also then as this time, the event sites suddenly became the focus of attention of the various municipal departments and received special treatment of cleanliness, gardening, culture and sports and of course communication and personal interest from the mayor's office. I live near the beginning of the upper level of the Spinoza stairs, my daughter lives near the lower level in Bar Giora. We both always joked about how, in honor of the stair race, the work crews come to prepare the place so that there would be no shame in front of the guests, after they left everything went back to normal and the residents of the place continued the routine of nagging the municipal departments that they would occasionally treat the cleaning of the spaces on the sides of the stairs as the stairs themselves.

Daniela talks to Spinoza • Watch

The reality of neglect is a fact of life

Unfortunately, the reality of neglect gradually became a fact of life of dirt and desolation of the stairs like all the streets and it has been the bread of our laws since the revolution of 2018. Complaints about a dirty city and lack of maintenance probably no longer excite anyone there in the office. In the midst of all this, the many stairwells scattered throughout the city, including the historical axes, are not unusual in the policy of neglect.

The charming portrait of Spinoza on the stairs is no longer visible from the end of Balfour's ascent. Despite appeals to renew it, the Haifa municipality did not bother to contact the artist Tatiana Blokenko and pay her to renew the portrait.

Haifa's stairs are simply stairs on the way from here to there

It seems that there is no one who has not heard about the vision of the Plaka stairs brought by Nachshon Tzuk from Athens and the expectation of drinking a mojito on the Spinoza stairs, as promised by Einat Kalish Rotem.

It seems that the dream has already been dashed by a process of maturation and insight, because one does not change a residential building overnight from a residence to a business, and one cannot command the residents of condominiums to abandon their jobs, to open a food business at the door of their house for the benefit of the passers-by who pass by the stairs from time to time, and also to share the income with the housing committee. Haifa is not the plaka.

Lots of stairs in Haifa

Haifa has a lot of staircases. There are some that I have not yet walked in despite the decades of living in the city and walking in its various parts.

There are some that I discovered recently and some that are part of my daily routine:
The Carmel center axis, Ramat Hadar and Balfour are the stairs I walk all my life here in this place. The gap between the part that ends in the Hasmoneans and what happens afterwards from Montefiore Street has always been clear to anyone with eyes in their head. The transition from an area of ​​well-kept mansions and ancient architecture, which is a spectacular and priceless jewel, to a more popular space is clear and sharp.

If it is said that money is attracted to money, then somehow the municipality's resources are also attracted to be invested in places where the overall packaging is polished and more attractive anyway. It's much easier to make the beautiful really amazing than just to improve.

Stairs connect and the teeth of time bite

It's important to understand, I love the stairs in my living area! Many years ago, I wrote a short story about Spinoza's stairs, which is all about connection and love for the place where my adult life, my relationship and my family were headed. Most of the days, my eldest daughter settled her life with her family near the axis of the stairs so that they became the stairs connecting us in a direct line. I walk up the Koresh stairs to the house where my youngest son lives in Masada. I'm a student of walking up the stairs from Tovia Donia Alley, the Kenaiim, the Shmuel stairs, the Emek stairs and other stairs that I don't remember.

I see the teeth of time biting into them and the existing neglect deepening even more. And yet there is something magical about them: surprising courtyards, glimpses of the landscape that expand the heart and cats lying next to them and indifferent to passers-by. I look around as if it's the first time I'm there. Despite the many years I've been going to these places and they still preserve the memories I stored in them.

Suddenly we grew a privileged staircase quarter and turned everything else into just stairs 

Like the representative apartment for guests, the "Stairs Quarter" suddenly grew here, on which there is now a publicist focus and the public is discovering it. 

The term "quarter" comes from the word quarter and defines an administrative unit accepted in countries or large cities. The term "neighborhood" describes an urban space under independent control or in which there is a population characterization such as the Armenian quarter, the Jewish quarter, the Muslim quarter, etc.

Particle branding

With the same concept of branding a part of the city and turning it into an item, Complex 2013 was built in 21 in the 'Downtown', on which it was written: "A new artists and designers district in the heart of Haifa's downtown", where there were weekly events that demonstrated that the part of Natanzon and its surroundings in the downtown is the right and hot place , full of life and renewal.

The ridicule and criticisms of Einat Kalish Rotem, then the chairman of the 'Life in Haifa' faction in the opposition, about Complex 21 and the presentation of the bustling life in Haifa were harsh and poignant. Today, no one remembers the name of the district that was invented and disappeared. Meanwhile, time took its toll along with the entrepreneurial community and the rest is history. 

Klish as an opposition company - sharp criticism of Complex 21 • Watch

Thousands of stairs in constant disintegration

The big difference between Complex 21 and the Stair Quarter is that in the lower city there is an urban space that offered a place, a historical story, a connection to an urban pulse, real estate, urban infrastructure and there was room to develop. You can continue to place exhibitions on the stairs, but what will happen when they are not there?

Very simply, those who followed them before will continue now as well. Nothing more will happen beyond that.

Thousands of stairs in the city are in a difficult and neglected condition, full of waste and dirt for months or even years, poor maintenance, constant disintegration, without gardening or maintenance. Those who live in the place are waiting for their time to be treated with a loving hand like the "Stairway Quarter" was. In the meantime there is a guest apartment on the Gedera and Gamla stairs and there is everything else where the less glamorous life in Haifa takes place.