FIETAS MUSEUM
Fourteenth Street in Fietas was once “the Petticoat Lane” of Johannesburg, thronging with Muslim merchants selling luxury and everyday goods. But in 1976 the traders were forcibly removed by the apartheid regime to the purpose-built Oriental Plaza, and their homes and stores were bulldozed to make way for a whites-only population. Salma Patel’s family was one of the 67 who refused to move, and the suburb deteriorated around them. She hoped that democracy would bring land restitution and enable Fietas to reclaim its soul, but she has been bitterly disappointed. In a bid to ease her pain she has turned the downstairs of her home into a museum, displaying mementoes of the suburb’s heyday and photographs by David Goldblatt and Paul Wynberg of its destruction.
25 14th Street, Pageview/Fietas. Booking is essential, 011-839-1566