Spit & Polish: 07 August 2011

Local residents would like to reopen the Brixton Tower. Let's hope the bureaucrats don't get in the way

I heard my radio colleague, John Robbie, talking about a community initiative to re-open the Brixton Tower as a tourist landmark. Its proper name is the Sentech Tower, but the old name has stuck.

John met a lively bunch of residents of Brixton and the surrounding suburbs and their enthusiasm unlocked a flood of personal memories for me.

The tower was completed in 1962 and named after an old Nationalist Party politician, Albert Hertzog. He was a racist and tyrant who feared the future and its technology. He fought against the arrival of television in South Africa and told Parliament: "Television is a destroyer of the human spirit and a bigger menace than the atom and hydrogen bombs."

At that time, the ANC was making effective use of radio and television, both in Europe and in Africa, so the Nats imposed drastic censorship on any form of radio that did not come out of the SABC, and they simply ignored television.

So it was that South Africans never got to see the Apollo moon landing, which the rest of the world saw. And, as one senator observed: "South Africans are now in step with the most backward peoples of the world."

It was only in 1971 that the first tentative moves towards the establishment of a television network were made. The first TV broadcasts began in 1976, and as the comedian Robert Kirby observed, the news and "debates" were so politically slanted that you had to lean sideways to follow what was being said.

The Brixton Tower (nobody ever called it the Hertzog Tower) became a significant, elegant, futuristic landmark and it was a great treat to go up to the viewing deck. It was a busy, fun kind of place, decked out in its 1960s trappings and once you got up there, the views were dramatic and magnificent.

Then the troubles of the 1980s began, with marches that turned into battles in the Joburg streets as the ANC cadres made their definitive move for liberation. The Nationalist government tried to censor the media and in the mad panic they closed Brixton Tower in 1982. Since then, one of Joburg's iconic structures has stood empty but guarded, just in case someone invades it.

What these phantom invaders might do with it, I cannot imagine, but in the 1980s the Nationalist government was not thinking rationally about anything, other than their hold on power. As a result, the Brixton Tower has been locked up for the last 29 years.

Now a group of Brixton residents are launching a campaign to re-open the tower, to create an attractive leisure area around its base and to revive the viewing platform, that was, in its glory days, the talk of the town.

The surrounding area is also an interesting place. It has been there since 1902 and many people built elegant colonial homes, with great views over what was then open veld. Top architects and designers such as Sir Herbert Baker and Frank Fleming built several grand houses, a few of which still stand.

It was a colourful and bohemian community, never affluent but creative and vibrant. What cosmopolitan Hillbrow was to the north of Joburg, Brixton became in the west.

It never lost its bohemian tang and, of course, when the SABC moved its studios out of the Jo'burg CBD to Auckland Park, there was a huge talent migration to Brixton and the surrounding suburbs. Actors, singers, cameramen, writers, directors and people of all stripes moved in and when the RAU students arrived on campus, Brixton and Melville became trendy hangouts. More recently the vibe of the place has diminished and the streets are dirty and, to the passerby, don't look entirely safe. But all that can change and that's exactly what these urban activists are after.

It won't be a pushover. Municipal authorities do not move swiftly at the best of times and the renovation of a 1960s tower does not really seem like a priority.

What we always hear from the Joburg municipality is that it has barely enough money to send its members on "fact-finding missions" to China and Europe, so finding extra cash for the renovation of a genuine landmark would confuse their accountants.

That's why the local community has created this initiative and I think their idea really hits the jackpot. I hope the citizens and the media of Jozi rally to the cause. There is also the sister structure, the Hillbrow Tower, which used to have a revolving restaurant that literally had one spinning in the stars. They would both be major tourist features for the city.

But will the municipal or national budget find the cash for the renovations, or will they first send a dozen civil servants to explore international tourist features, using the money that could have funded this unique home-town project?