Back to the beach

It was Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, who supposedly declared "Jews don't like to bathe in the sea," though no one is sure when he said it. Yet the statement still reflected the founders' attitude toward the city's most obvious asset.

For a combination of historical, cultural and political reasons the first inhabitants of Tel Aviv turned their backs on the sea.

Dizengoff even proposed laying train tracks along the shore and establishing areas for heavy industry there.

Yet despite the municipality's first plans, the city's inhabitants voted with their feet and made the beach a favorite recreation destination.

In 1921 the fabled Galei Aviv Casino opened, which led to continued development. In the 1940s, with a population of 200,000, Tel Aviv became a typical Mediterranean city. In the summer there was no chance of finding a bit of sand not already covered by a chair or parasol.

The close relationship between Tel Aviv and its beaches began to disintegrate in the 1950s as accelerated development of hotels and the frequent drainage of sewage into the sea made the beach less and less popular.

The promenade built while Shlomo (Chich) Lahat was mayor in the 1980s did help attract the public, but a four-lane road was also added alongside it. Today, anyone trying to get to the beach must deal with improvised parking lots, a busy highway and much neglect.

The promenade itself is full of hazards and obstacles, the pavement is crumbling and the stone benches are obsolete and uncomfortable. Now the municipality wants to make the seashore a real attraction again, and deal with the neglected space around it.

Two separate and complementary plans initiated by the municipality are now in the process of approval and implementation.

The city's show window

The first, by the architectural firm Mayslits Kassif, is for the promenade itself and the beach. The second plan, by the Yair Avigdor firm, deals with Herbert Samuel Street, which stretches alongside the promenade.

"The beach is supposed to be the show window, the city's facade, but today this really isn't the case," said Orly Arel, director of the city's central planning department. "We felt a need at the engineering administration to define more precisely how the city sees the beach, what uses it finds along its length and how its design will look."

The aim of the first plan is to renovate the promenade and the beach facilities, to organize areas still under construction and to use central development principles along the strip of beach.

Mayslits Kassif, which is also responsible for the planning of the Tel Aviv Port, has identified a number of fundamental problems in the functioning of the promenade: In built-up areas it is too narrow for pedestrian traffic and cyclists do not have a satisfactory path.

Along the beach itself, the changing rooms are not of a sufficient standard, the area for swimmers suffers from a takeover by people renting equipment, there is a lack of inexpensive and available beach furniture and it is not sufficiently accessible to the disabled.

The planned renovation, which will reportedly begin this year, will clear area the of hazards and the rough brown pavement, lighting and benches will be replaced.

A two-lane bike path will run alongside the promenade at the expense of one of the car lanes, which in turn will be edged a bit eastwards at the expense of an existing barrier.

On some of the beaches the low wall between the sand and the sidewalk will be demolished and replaced with broad steps, making access easier and affording additional seating with new pergolas.

Also under consideration is the possibility of establishing an additional footpath on the beach itself to afford easier access to the changing rooms and kiosks.

One problematic issue in the plan is developing some of the area currently serving swimmers. However, research conducted by Mayslits Kassif has found that the strip of beach closest to the promenade is rarely used because the temperature of the sand reaches up to 70 degrees Celsius during the summer.

"I think the new stairs will enable a fun encounter between people in bathing suits and people who have just gone out for a stroll on the promenade," said architect Ganit Mayslits Kassif. "This is a place for the development of a new beach culture that doesn't exist in the city today."

Sources at the municipality say the plan was initiated by Mayor Ron Huldai, who started pedaling and discovered on his own that there is no designated bike path along the beach.

The municipality is currently holding meetings with groups of stakeholders - lifeguards, merchants, environmentalists and others, and at the end of the process a public meeting on the issue will be held.

Guy Nardi, of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel's Tel Aviv branch, participated in one such meeting this week. According to him, the society filed an objection to the steps, in protest against replacing the sand.

"Prima facie, today we have no problem with these steps," he said. "What does bother us is the shade pergolas, which in effect create a very large built-up cover in a place where there shouldn't be any structures. We want a lighter solution for shade and the planners agree with us."

Walkers win out

At the same time, the Yair Avigdor firm is working on a comprehensive rehabilitation of Herbert Samuel Street, which today has a mish-mash of uses, is in a state of neglect and cuts the seashore off from the city.

"We've done a comprehensive historical study and we have tried to understand why a beach city like Tel Aviv isn't using its most important asset," said Yair Avigdor. "In the 1930s and 1940s the inhabitants would go down to the beach every day. At the start of the 1950s and during the 1960s there was a crisis when they started draining the sewage into the sea and cities like Bat Yam and Netanya opened beaches of their own. At the same time as that a number of large projects were built, like the marina, the Hilton Hotel and Kikar Atarim, which were perhaps successful individually but didn't create any continuity. The seashore became a disgusting place."

Avigdor's partner, architect Shlomo Zeevy, adds that in his opinion the main problem along the seashore in Tel Aviv is the huge amount of traffic on Herbert Samuel Street.

"In the past the municipality thought this was the place to solve its traffic problems. They made it an urban thoroughfare and instead of a promenade we got the Ayalon Highway. The seashore is defined as a place for vehicles to travel and not as a place representing itself."

As part of the plan now under discussion at the municipality, the small service road along the street, which constitutes a safety hazard and prevents development of commerce and other uses, will be eliminated entirely. The number of lanes will be reduced and beside them a continuous strip will be paved to serve as parking.

Also planned is a wide sidewalk on the eastern side of the street, which will give pedestrians and cyclists control of the public space.

This plan has far-reaching transportation implications, first and foremost a considerable slowing of traffic along the promenade.

"The intention is that people who seek the fastest way to get from north to south will choose a different route," says Avigdor. "They will drive slower parallel to the promenade and pedestrians and cyclists will be able to cross safely at designated crossings. There is reverse discrimination here in the [walkers and cyclists] favor and we think that in such a special place from the urban perspective this is a price worth paying."

One of the alternatives now being looked at for the quick implementation of the plan is the transformation of the service road into a pedestrian thoroughfare, as was recently done with great success in Manhattan by blocking off Broadway.

With a minimal investment, the asphalt there was painted and potted plants and some street furniture were installed. Today this is one of the most interesting precedents for putting pedestrian traffic above cars.

During the past decade Tel Aviv has invested considerable resources in renewing key sites along the shoreline - such as the Tel Aviv Port, the Gordon swimming pool, the Charles Clore Park, the Jaffa Slope Park and the Jaffa Port, which will open to visitors during this coming year.

The Tel Aviv shoreline is becoming the most important and richest public space in the city. In this respect Tel Aviv is following, with considerable delay, in the footsteps of other coastal cities like Barcelona and Boston, which have decided to reconnect with their shores.

Arel hopes that within a year or two the city's inhabitants will already feel a fundamental change.

"We want to strengthen the city's connection to the sea and create for the inhabitants a physical and emotional connection to it, exactly the way it used to be."