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Stuff from Johannesburg

Bedfordview Licensing Centre reopens its doors

Services at the Bedfordview Licensing Centre and the rates hall have been restored following a break-in earlier this month.

“The Bedfordview Licensing Centre and rates hall are now open after being closed due to a burglary that happened on Sunday, 14 July 2019,” said the City of Ekurhuleni on Monday.

The preliminary investigation revealed that intruders gained entry through the roof, and took a large amount of money after forcefully opening two cash drop-off safes.

An eNatis computer box and a plasma TV screen were also stolen, while the eNatis server was damaged. This led to the suspension of most services at these offices.

In a statement on last Tuesday, the City said two cash drop-off safes were damaged as a result of the break-in.

“Anyone with information that can lead to the successful prosecution of the perpetrators may report to the police or call 08600 10111,” said the City. – SAnews.gov.za

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The Randlord Mansions: History

The history of these mansions is also a story of urban warfare and preservation. In the 1960s and 70s, as Johannesburg expanded, many of the original Parktown estates were ruthlessly demolished to make way for the M1 Highway and the massive concrete campus of the Wits University Medical School. The “Parktown War” saw heritage activists fighting the bulldozers to save what remained of the city’s architectural soul. Today, several of the surviving mansions serve as corporate headquarters, schools, or museums, stripped of their private domesticity but preserved as monuments to a gilded age.

Interestingly, these mansions also played a secret role in the city’s political evolution. It was in the drawing rooms of Parktown that the “progressive” mining elite would meet to discuss the future of the country, often finding themselves at odds with the more conservative Boer government. Lady Florence Phillips, in particular, used her influence to found the Johannesburg Art Gallery, insisting that a world-class city needed world-class culture, not just gold bars. Today, walking the “Heritage Trail” through Parktown offers a haunting contrast; you stand in the quiet, manicured gardens of the victors, looking down at the pulsing, crowded city that their gold mines created. It is the ultimate “view from the top,” a reminder that the extreme wealth of Sandton today has its DNA rooted in the stone-and-timber palaces of the 1900s.