Dizengoff Square is mounted on
his office wall.
"This is really a picture of
Dizengoff Square, circa 2004,"
Darin says. 'We'll be re-priori-
tizing pedestrian traffic on the
street.
"Only when [these plans are
in place] will people come back to
Dizengoff, and only then will
there be any point in inves ting
things like lighting and side-
walks."
In answer to the suggestion
that current store owners might
not be satisfied with waiting un-
til 2004, Darin throws his hands
up. "I hope they understand that
things will be better in the future.
There are always problems in the
between-times."
"Nonsense," says Kairi-Gathi.
"It has to be taken care of long
beforehand. You'll notice that
they always invest in Ibn Gvirol,
because that's where the munic-
ipality sits."
Across the street from Il Maki-
age, Rapp Gifts is in the middle
of a closing-down sale, after 25
years on Dizengoff. A sales-
woman, Ayelet, has been work-
ing there for the last decade and
is saddened by the closing.
"For years, we would get some-
thing like 20 customers a day,"
she says. "Now there are days
when we hardly open the cash
register."
She, too, blames the lack of
parking and infrastructure for
the street's decline, calling the
city's attitude "negligent."
Rapp Gifts is located on the
east side of the street, halfway
between Ben-Gurion and Ar-
losoroff, in a string of five neigh-
boring stores that have recently
been forced, like seven others on
the block, to close. Many of these
storefronts have been standing
empty for months.
To be sure, some businesspeo-
ple on the street are doing all
right. Bilha Sakai, the manager
of Porn d'Api, a children's shoe
store nestled among the desola-
tion on the eastern side of the
Ben-Gurion-Arlosoroff block, says
business has been good ever since
she opened three years ago. Du
Pareil au Meme, a children's
clothing store at 119 Dizengoff,
opened this spring and manager
Ilan Maloul says there is plenty
of work. Even Kairi-Gafni says
her new business is doing well,
but all three concede that they
get very little street traffic; their
customers come to Dizengoff es-
pecially to shop with them.
Israel is no longer as fresh and
unformed as it once was, in
search of a voice. Moreover, Is-
rael in general and Tel Aviv in
particular are simply a lot big-
ger, and that fact in itself re-
quires that there be more than a
single two- or three-block area in
which the country's cultural and
social aspirations can find ex-
pression. ❑

(c) Jerusalem Post 1997

A M
perfect

JOAN VASS USA
Fall 1997

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