Elite building decorated with huge sweets (photo: Walla! system, Reuven Castro)
The smell of chocolate has long since evaporated, but the nostalgia can still be smelled (Photo: Walla! System, Reuven Castro)
"At the end of Ramat Gan there is a special place
where you can stand and smell chocolate"
(The smell of chocolate, Yonatan Gefen) The
smell of chocolate from Yonatan Gefen's poem has long since evaporated from the intersection at the western entrance to Ramat Gan, in the Stock Exchange area.
But this week, drivers who pass by the busy Elite intersection every day had a pleasant surprise (for a change) - instead of a sinkhole, a blockage or excavation of the railway works.
The old Elite building, one of the most recognized and oldest buildings in the area, is decorated entirely with huge and colorful sweets.
The play is so colorful and stands out against the background of the gray office buildings, that it is hard to look away from it.
The decoration was initiated by the Ramat Gan municipality, as part of the city's 100th anniversary celebrations, and was actually carried out by a production company hired specifically for this purpose.
The rounded structure of the old factory where chocolate was actually made in the past (just like in the song) is decorated with red and white striped grandfather sticks, huge chocolate tables and also the faces of Bazooka Joe and "Alma" from the nostalgic Alma gum.
And this is how it looks at night (photo: Ramat Gan Municipality Spokesperson)
The factory - then and now
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even on a normal day The old Elite building is different in view from the stock exchange towers that have sprung up around it in recent decades.
The factory was built by Eliyahu Promchenko, a Russian and Zionist businessman who owned a chocolate factory in Latvia.
With the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933, Promchenko correctly identified the direction in which the winds were blowing in Europe and decided to move his business to Eretz Israel.
The location of the building, which was then in the western outskirts of the relatively young city of Ramat Gan, was due to the proximity to Tel Aviv and the low cost of the area.
The structure of the factory was designed according to the characteristic lines of the international architecture (Bauhaus) which was very popular in the thirties of the last century, by the engineer Shlomo Ponrov.
The rounded facade of the building with round balconies carved into it became the hallmark of the building, and later also of the intersection which became a historical landmark and is called by many to this day "Elite Junction".
The rounded building is also the last remnant of the factory complex (which included other buildings in an area of about 15 dunams) that was destroyed and office towers will be built on its ruins.
The remaining building was declared a conservation building and in recent years it has been used by the art department of Shankar College.
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