Once proud businesses lie in ruins
WHEN travelling through the northern areas, the ruins of once-flourishing businesses are visible.
Most of these buildings in Korsten and Schauderville, Arcadia, Bloemendal and Gelvandale formed part of a once bustling business environment featuring hotels, butcheries, wholesalers, liquor stores and tailor shops which were the pride of businessmen and families in these suburbs – that is until the Northern Areas Uprising in August 1990.
The uprising, a five-day chaotic rampage in which dozens were killed and hundreds injured as a result of conflict between police and protesting residents that started on August 6, saw residents loot shops and burn down the buildings, leaving the owners in despair. Only a handful of these businesses managed to recover over the years while the rest are just ruins and rubble.
Residents who witnessed the unrest remember how hundreds of people ran through the streets with whole sheep carcasses thrown over their shoulders as they looted butcheries. Some are said to have carried home crates full of alcohol as they targeted liquor stores while others illegally stocked up their grocery cupboards from wholesalers’ shelves.
“The sad thing is that the most prominent businesses in the northern areas were destroyed,” resident and member of the Northern Areas Uprising Committee (NAUC) Aubrey Simon said.
“The Astra in Bloemendal where the posh Galaxy nightclub was, never reopened. Today it is an eyesore. The Alabama Hotel in Korsten, Teak Street Liquor Store in Arcadia, Koelie Morgan’s shops in Gelvandale, Oomie se Winkel in Helenvale – all these businesses were community favourites. I guess the owners simply didn’t have the money to start over again,” Simon said.
One of the communities’ favourite facilities at the time was Dr Jeff Govender’s surgeries in Windvogel and Gelvandale.
Though the Gelvandale surgery survived the unrest as residents guarded the building in Zimdahl Street with their lives, Govender’s Windvogel branch did not survive the fiery battle.
“On the day in question, as I drove down Zimdahl Street, I could see that all was not well in the community,” Govender, who helped hundreds of injured residents that week, said.
“Shops were broken into and the laundry in Zimdahl Street was ablaze. This appeared to cut off the electricity. We continued working in the surgery under candlelight and gas lamps. We saw many patients with buckshot and other injuries. The surgery in Windvogel was burnt beyond recovery. Files, equipment, computer and medicines were all lost.”