This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2007) |
Gardens | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 33°56′0″S18°24′30″E / 33.93333°S 18.40833°E | |
Country | South Africa |
Province | Western Cape |
Municipality | City of Cape Town |
Main Place | Cape Town |
Government | |
• Councillor | Vivienne Walker (DA) |
Area | |
• Total | 1.90 km2 (0.73 sq mi) |
Population (2011) [1] | |
• Total | 7,960 |
• Density | 4,200/km2 (11,000/sq mi) |
Racial makeup (2011) | |
• Black African | 23.5% |
• Coloured | 7.2% |
• Indian/Asian | 2.0% |
• White | 64.8% |
• Other | 2.5% |
First languages (2011) | |
• English | 60.4% |
• Afrikaans | 25.3% |
• Xhosa | 3.6% |
• Other | 10.8% |
Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
Postal code (street) | 8001 |
Gardens (or The Gardens) is an affluent inner-city suburb of Cape Town located just to the south of the city centre located in the higher elevations of the "City Bowl" and directly beneath Table Mountain and Lion's Head. It is home to several national museums such as Iziko South African National Gallery and the Iziko South African Museum. The University of Cape Town also houses its Fine Arts department in the suburb, at Michaelis School of Fine Art. Company's Garden, South Africa's oldest garden, a public park and heritage site is a focal point of the suburb. The area is also home to the oldest synagogue in Southern Africa, the Old Shul (now occupied by the South African Jewish Museum) and its successor, the Gardens Shul, "The Mother Synagogue of South Africa."
It is also home to the storied Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel, a luxury hotel dating back to 1899, [2] as well as the Labia Theatre, a beloved independent art house cinema. [3] The main thoroughfare is Kloof Street, known for its fashion stores, second-hand furniture stores, restaurants and art galleries. [4] It also houses Leeuwenhof estate, the official residence of the Premier of the Western Cape. It is a hub for the Cape Town creative industry, home to e.tv at Longkloof Studios and many modelling agencies, production and publishing companies and associated industries.
In the early years, the Cape was used as an anchorage for Portuguese, Dutch and British ships. No permanent settlement existed until the Dutch East India Company issued a mandate to Jan van Riebeeck, a ship's surgeon, to establish a settlement which could provide passing ships with fruit, vegetables and fresh meat (traded from the locals).
In 1652 the first garden was laid out by Hendrik Boom, the Company's master gardener, on a site close to the Fresh River (near to the Grand Parade). Later that year, the garden crossed the Fresh River (where Adderley Street is today), and included a medicine garden. Within a few years it was 18 hectares in size.
As more produce became available from the Company's gardens at Newlands and from the Free Burghers who had settled along the Liesbeeck River, the town garden was slowly converted into a botanical and ornamental garden, although the growing of vegetables did continue for a number of years.
The famous kilometre-long Government Avenue, which runs from the top of Adderley Street, also known as 'The Gardens', was originally planted with lemon trees and in 1700 with orange trees. During the time of Simon van der Stel, it was lined with oak trees, which remain today.
The suburb is home to Southern Africa's oldest Jewish congregation. The first Jewish services in the country were held on the day preceding Yom Kippur in 1841, known as Erev Yom Kippur at Benjamin Norden's home, Helmsley Place. The Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel purchased Norden's former home in 1996 and it is now guest accommodation for the hotel. [5] [6] In the early twentieth century, a Jewish primary school was established on Hope Street, United Hebrew Schools'. A purpose-built school was built at the same site in 1937, replacing the large house that had previously housed the school. [7] The school later became known as Herzlia School and relocated to its current campus in Vredehoek in the 1950s, where a high school was also established. [8]
During apartheid, Vredehoek was designated as a “whites-only” area as part of the Group Areas Act. The Gardens Centre Tower was built in the 1970s in response to a "white housing crisis" in racially segregated Cape Town. In the 1970s the National Party initiated several planning interventions, including the suspension of the city's zoning rules with regards to building height for developers willing to build housing in white Group Areas. [9] The residential tower and shopping mall replaced a large historic hotel, The International Hotel situated on Upper Mill Street. The South Africa national rugby union team (Springboks) usually stayed there when they were playing in Cape Town. The hotel also hosted bands and concerts over the weekends. [10]
Kloof Street mostly consisted of boarding houses for most of the twentieth century, many have now been converted into restaurants, cafes, boutiques and hotels. [11]
The suburb is served by the MyCiTi bus rapid transit system. The 101 route takes passengers to Vredehoek and the Cape Town Civic Centre in central Cape Town. The 113 route takes passengers to Adderley Street and the V&A Waterfront. The 107 route goes to Camps Bay. [17]
Sea Point is an affluent and densely populated suburb of Cape Town, situated in the Western Cape, between Signal Hill and the Atlantic Ocean, a few kilometres to the west of Cape Town's Central Business District (CBD). Moving from Sea Point to the CBD, one passes first through the small suburb of Three Anchor Bay, then Green Point. Seaward from Green Point is the area known as Mouille Point, where the local lighthouse is situated. It borders to the southwest the suburb of Bantry Bay. It is known for its large Jewish population, synagogues, and kosher food options.
Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F. Originally intended as a "well-to-do" neighbourhood, it instead developed into a white working class and lower middle class area as the city expanded northwards and public rail access improved. From the 1920s onwards it became a significant enclave of German Jewish and Eastern European Jewish immigrants. It was designated as a "white area" under the Group Areas Act during the apartheid era. It became a "grey area" in the 1980s, as a limited number of non-white residents began to rent in the area. From the end of the 1970s, a growing number of night clubs and galleries opened in Yeoville, or relocated from Hillbrow. This led to the neighbourhood becoming the leading nightspot in the city.The white population began to decline in the 1970s, and this white flight accelerated in the early to mid 1990s, with most residents migrating to the northern suburbs. Today, it is widely known and celebrated for its diverse, pan-African population but notorious for its high levels of crime, poverty and degradation.
Glenhazel is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region E, bordering Fairmount, Sandringham, Lyndhurst and Percelia Estate. The area lies on a sloping hill with a park in the valley. It is known for its large Jewish population as well as for being home to the largest Jewish kosher hub in Johannesburg, which attracts many Jewish tourists.
Vredehoek is a residential suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, located at the foot of Table Mountain and Devil's Peak. It is sandwiched between the two neighbouring suburbs of Oranjezicht and Devil's Peak Estate, the latter of which is often considered a sub-suburb of Vredehoek as they both fall under the neighbourhood watch community called DPV - Devil's Peak & Vredehoek.
The Bo-Kaap is an area of Cape Town, South Africa formerly known as the Malay Quarter. It is a former racially segregated area, situated on the slopes of Signal Hill above the city centre and is a historical centre of Cape Malay culture in Cape Town. The Nurul Islam Mosque, established in 1844, is located in the area.
The Iziko South African National Gallery is the national art gallery of South Africa located in Cape Town. It became part of the Iziko collection of museums – as managed by the Department of Arts and Culture – in 2001. It then became an agency of the Department of Arts and Culture. Its collection consists largely of Dutch, French and British works from the 17th to the 19th century. This includes lithographs, etchings and some early 20th-century British paintings. Contemporary art work displayed in the gallery is selected from many of South Africa's communities and the gallery houses an authoritative collection of sculpture and beadwork.
Green Point is an affluent suburb on the Atlantic Seaboard of Cape Town, South Africa located to the north west of the central business district. It is home to Cape Town Stadium, a major sporting venue that was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Sea Point promenade runs through the suburb, connecting it to Three Anchor Bay and Sea Point, a popular Jewish neighbourhood. Somerset Road forms the main thoroughfare lined by restaurants, cafés, delis, boutiques and nightclubs.
Hoërskool Jan van Riebieck is a public co-educational high school situated in Gardens in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was founded in 1926 by J.J. Jordaan and educates in both Afrikaans and English language.
The Gardens Shul, formally the Cape Town Hebrew Congregation (CTHC), also called the Great Synagogue, is a Modern Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the Company Gardens, in the Gardens neighborhood of Cape Town, South Africa. The congregation was established in 1841, making it the oldest Jewish congregation in South Africa.
Anton Anreith was a sculptor and woodcarver from Riegel near Freiburg in Breisgau, Baden, Germany. He is known for numerous sculptural embellishments that adorn buildings in the Cape region of South Africa, thought to represent the crowning achievement of the Cape Baroque style.
The Company's Garden is the oldest garden in South Africa, a park and heritage site located in central Cape Town. The garden was originally created in the 1650s by the region's first European settlers and provided fertile ground to grow fresh produce to replenish ships rounding the Cape. It is watered from the Molteno Dam, which uses water from the springs on the lower slopes of Table Mountain.
The Cecil John Rhodes Statue is a monument erected at Company's Garden in Cape Town. The statue was erected in 1908. It features a full body replica of Cecil Rhodes wearing a three-piece suit, standing with his left hand raised and pointing north. It has been compared to the Jan van Riebeeck statue, which faces south and asserts a different sense of occupation. Despite its size, the present location of the monument in the Company's Garden makes it less significant in comparison to that of Jan Smuts at Adderley Street, Cape Town, a location that had been considered for the placement of the Rhodes statue.
Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel is a luxury hotel situated in the Gardens neighbourhood in inner-city Cape Town in a garden estate overlooked by Table Mountain.
Rabbi Barry Marcus is a South African rabbi. He retired as senior minister of Central Synagogue, Great Portland Street in London in 2018 after serving the congregation for over 23 years. He is notable for his rabbinical and pastoral duties in the UK, Israel and South Africa.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cape Town:
The Jacob Gitlin Library in Cape Town, South Africa is an archive of information on Judaism, Jewish culture and history, and the nation of Israel. It was founded under the auspices of the South African Zionist Federation in 1959.
The South African Jewish Museum is a museum of South African Jewish life, history and identity. The museum is situated in the downtown neighbourhood of Gardens in Cape Town. It is located in the grounds of Gardens Shul, and is in the same complex as the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre and the Gardens Jewish Community Centre. It is also close to the Iziko South African National Gallery and Houses of Parliament. The museum was founded by the late philanthropist, Mendel Kaplan. It documents the community's historical roots in Lithuania and elsewhere. Thereon it documents the role of South African Jewry in South African society and their contributions to a number of diverse fields.
The Marais Road Shul, formally the Green & Sea Point Hebrew Congregation (G&SPHC), is a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Sea Point, a seaside suburb of Cape Town. The congregation was first established in 1926, and the synagogue was completed in 1934. It had initially intended to become a branch of the Gardens Shul in the City Bowl, but opted for independence, and became the larger of the two. It is the largest Jewish congregation in South Africa, and by 1994, it had become the largest in the South Hemisphere. The Sephardi Hebrew Congregation, established in 1960, also operates a shul from the G&SPHC's Weizmann Hall on Regent Road in Sea Point.
The Vredehoek Shul, formally the Cape Town Hebrew Congregation, was a Modern Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Vredehoek in Cape Town, South Africa. The synagogue was completed in 1939 and closed in 1993. The Art Deco-style building is a protected South African Heritage Resources Agency site and currently operates as Private Collection, an antique furniture showroom.
The Beit Midrash Morasha is a Modern Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located on Arthur's Road, in Sea Point, a seaside suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The congregation was first established in 1897 in District Six, before relocating to Vredehoek in 1945. It moved to its present location in Sea Point in 1954.