Once Beirut’s fashion hub, Hamra Street is now dark
Cosmopolitan avenue was once the Champs Elysees of Lebanese capital
From his small music shop on Beirut’s Hamra Street, Michel Eid witnessed the rise and fall of Lebanon through the changing fortunes of this famed boulevard for more than 60 years.
Hamra Street was the centre of Beirut’s glamour in the 1960s and 1970s, home to Lebanon’s top movie houses and theatres, cafes frequented by intellectuals and artists, and shops selling top international brands. It saw a revival the past decade, thriving with international chain stores and vibrant bars and restaurants.
Stores shuttered
Now many of its stores are shuttered. Poverty-stricken Lebanese and Syrian refugees beg on its sidewalks. Trash piles up on its corners. Like the rest of Lebanon, the economic crash swept through the street like a destructive storm.
At 88 years old, Eid remembers the bad times, during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, when Hamra saw militias battling, assassinations at its cafes and, at one point, invading Israeli troops marching down the street. Nothing was as bad as now, Eid says. “We have hit rock bottom,” he said. Few customers come to his Tosca Music Shop and Electronic Supplies, which sells records and a variety of electronic clocks, calculators and watches. His business has dropped 75 per cent.
Economic meltdown
Lebanon’s economic meltdown, which began in October 2019, was the culmination of the country’s post-war era. The war’s militia leaders became the political leadership and have kept a lock on power ever since. They ran an economy that at times boomed but was effectively a Ponzi scheme riddled with corruption and mismanagement.
The scheme finally collapsed in what the World Bank calls one of the world’s worst economic and financial crises since the mid 1800s. The currency’s value evaporated, salaries lost their buying power, dollars in banks became inaccessible, prices skyrocketed in a country where nearly everything is imported. As much as 82 per cent of the population now lives in poverty, according to the UN Unemployment is estimated at 40 per cent.
The crisis was made worse by the coronavirus pandemic and a massive explosion at Beirut’s port that killed 216 people, wounded thousands and destroyed parts of the capital. While the economic system collapsed, the political one hasn’t. The same leadership, entrenched in power, has done virtually nothing to address the crisis. Refusing basic reforms, they have made no progress in talks with the IMF.