On video: the ugliest building in the world (Yotam Ronan)
"The ugliest in the world?! It's a building from the movies! In the summer you don't need to turn on the air conditioner at all. People don't know the story of this building at all, they just write 'the ugliest building in the world', without checking, without knowing the facts"
The high-rise residential building at 67 Hatzamtu St. in Bat Yam woke up this morning for its 15 minutes of fame, but for its residents it didn't really change the agenda.
Except maybe a few reporters and camera crews who showed up there today and ambushed the neighbors in the lobby, to cover the architectural attraction that has been given the title of "the ugliest building in the world".
It all started from some trivial discussion on the Reddit social network, which, if it hadn't been mentioned on Twitter, probably no one would have noticed.
But in the viral age in which we live, when the ball starts rolling down the funnels of social networks, nothing will help anymore.
And now go prove that you don't have a sister, and that the building she lives in isn't actually the ugliest in the world.
Because the truth is, the residents of the building know that their building is not some king of beauty, but the ugliest in the world?
Maybe someone here got carried away.
"We laughed about it, what's to be offended about? Everything is fine," says Daniel Shimonov, a young man who has been living with his parents for 10 years in an apartment on the fifth floor.
"When you read the article and see the picture with his name, you can understand why they said that about him. But look at the lobby, enter the houses here, everything is renovated. 'The ugliest building' - Soo Watt?".
But not everyone took the announcement with humor.
"The ugliest thing in the world?! It's a building from the movies, you know," Chico Luke, who lives in a 4-room apartment on the fourth floor, "on the good side," told me.
When Luke says the good side, he means the rear of the building, which faces west and enjoys a view of the sea.
Not a tiny spit of sea, a big, beautiful piece of blue visible from the large living room windows of the apartments on this side of the building.
But even the apartments at the front of the building have windows from which you can see the sea, for example in the kitchen.
A story that begins with a jump from a tower
"There are no buildings like that today, they don't build like that. In the summer you don't have to turn on the air conditioner at all, the apartments are cold even in the summer and there is a breeze from the sea. People don't know the story of this building at all, they just write 'the ugliest building in the world', without checking, without knowing the The facts," he says, and it is clear that he is upset and it is important to him to claim the insult to the house.
"This building is called Migdal Nahum, after the contractor who built it. There was supposed to be another identical tower right next to it, but the contractor ran into difficulties and didn't have the money to finish the project. Do you know what he did?" he tells me, and the tone of his speech He was energetic and determined, dropping a few decibels, "He went up to the 11th floor - the top floor of his building, and jumped. He committed suicide. That's how it used to be... there was respect for the contractors."
"This is a smart house! Who dreamed 50-60 years ago of a house with two elevators, a garbage shaft on each floor and parking under the building? Nobody had that. You have everything here - everything you could want, right under the house. The shopping center This was our mall when we were kids, we used to come here to spend time, to meet. There were two event halls here - I myself got married in one of them in 1998," Chiko continues to tell.
It was supposed to have a twin tower, but the contractor was unable to complete the construction.
The building at 67 Atzuma, Bat Yam (Photo: Yotam Ronan)
The prices of the apartments in the building are around NIS 2-2.5 million for a large 4-room apartment (Photo: Walla! System, Miter Schleider Potchnik)
On the empty stump that remained above the commercial floor, in the place where the twin tower of Migdal Nahum was supposed to be built, over the years another building, very different in appearance, was built where there is a private medical center and a rehabilitation hospital.
And what is happening with him is much more disturbing to the residents of Atzamtu 67 than the insulting crowns that internet surfers associated with them.
Rumor has it that the hospital has plans to expand on an additional area, which will reduce the distance between it and the apartment building, and will block the windows and the view of the sea for a significant part of the apartments.
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who lives here
I walked around for a good few hours between the 11 floors of the building.
It was not possible to talk to all the tenants - quite a few of them are new immigrants (more or less) who do not speak Hebrew.
"I saw that they said it was a boat building, but it's not a boat building," one of them, a new immigrant from France who lives on the third floor with his wife and son, told me with the little Hebrew he managed to muster to try and talk to me.
A veteran immigrant with better Hebrew is L.
She lives on the eighth floor in an apartment overflowing with furniture and covetable belongings that she brought with her to Israel when she immigrated from Armenia in the 1990s ("When we left, we were not allowed to take dollars, only equipment. So we bought things - service, dishes, maps, furniture and with what we bought on us. The bed I sleep on It's the bed I brought with me from Armenia when we immigrated to Israel."
She has lived in the building with her husband since 1996, today she is already retired, but for 25 years she worked as a waitress in a nursing home near Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.
From the large windows in her living room you can see the sea well.
She actually heard about the dubious honor that her building was awarded, but she didn't really understand who chose it and why.
She also agrees that something can be done to improve the visibility of the building from the outside as well as from the inside, but to say that it is the ugliest?
Oh well.
What bothers her more is the fact that a year ago they were notified that the building is dangerous, but what exactly is the problem and who will fix it?
They have not been able to find that out to this day.
"I saw that they said it was a sailing building, but it is not a sailing building."
The mailboxes in the lobby of the building (Photo: Walla! system, Meither Schleider Putschnik)
Make a turn through the passage to lower the bin.
The blocked garbage shaft (photo: Walla! system, Meither Schleider Putschnik)
One for the even floors and one for the odd floors.
The elevator (photo: Walla! system, Schleider Potchnik string)
The old tenants in the building are very old people, some of them have already passed away and bequeathed the apartments to their children who preferred to sell or rent them.
But those of them who are still here, are already elderly, and share the sea view and the breeze with Filipino nannies.
I made the way to the tenth floor in the elevator of the even floors in the company of a courier of medical equipment.
He had just arrived to change the oxygen cylinders of one of the tenants.
The caretaker of the elderly resident was already waiting for him at the open door, through which we could see a wall painted peachy orange and a shelf with Hindu figurines.
Two full oxygen tanks were replaced by two empty ones, and the messenger turned on his heels.
"It's really a very ugly building," he told me just before returning to the elevator.
"And worst of all, there's nowhere to park either."
The parking issue is a sensitive story that is another layer of disagreement between the tenants and the owners of the neighboring building.
As mentioned, the building has a parking floor as part of the wide commercial complex on which it sits.
But the tenants are required to pay several hundred shekels a month to park there, even though they claim they are supposed to park there for free.
The garbage shaft is also inactive, it was blocked years ago and this is also part of the winding saga of the conflict with the neighboring building.
In the meantime, the tenants have to go out through the lobby with the garbage bags, go around the shops on the trading floor and go through one of the passages, every time they want to take the garbage out.
The new rumor about the construction plans that could block the view of the building has already caused quite a few of the old tenants who are still here to consider their steps.
Some decided to put the apartments up for sale.
Even the front apartments have a piece of sea from the window.
The view from Ilana Ashkenazi's kitchen window on the seventh floor (photo: Walla! System, Miter Schleider Potchnik)
The light rail already passes there on regular trips.
The building at 67 Atzumat, Bat Yam (photo: Walla! system, Miter Schleider Potchnik)
"In the building there are only apartments with three and four rooms, but they are huge, like they used to build. Today they don't build like that anymore, where will you find a 4-room apartment 130 square meters and so close to Tel Aviv?", Chico Luke tells me. We We stand and talk on the sidewalk at the opposite end of the street, where his lingerie and pajama store is located. From here there is a good view of the entire height of the building. "Really, do you think he's the ugliest in the world?", he asks me.
How much does an apartment in the building cost?
"Okay, it's really ugly, but what's good about it is that it has everything here. I go downstairs, I just leave the house and I have everything - a doctor, a post office, a bank, a health insurance fund."
The building at 67 Hatzamuta St. sits on a central intersection near the northern exit from Bat Yam (the tombstone square stands in its navel).
Right at the exit of the building there are bus lines and also the light rail already passes here on regular trips.
In terms of location, it's really not far from Tel Aviv and the accessibility by public transportation is high. "It's an old building, but it's a good building.
OK, it's really ugly, but what's good about it is that it has everything.
I go downstairs, just leave the house and I have everything - writer, post office, bank, health fund.
Everything is really, really close," says Ilana Ashkenazi.
Ashkenazi is a kind of 'returning tenant' in the building. Her mother lived in an apartment on the seventh floor for about 40 years ("I don't remember exactly, but I'm sure more than thirty"), for part of the time she lived there with her. A year ago the mother passed away, and Ilana sold her apartment and moved into an apartment that she completely renovated.
So how much does an apartment in the building cost?
Depends on who you ask.
A 4-room apartment on the 7th floor facing the front (not the sea) recently went on the market with an asking price of NIS 2.2 million, but has not yet been sold. A check on the Medlan website about past transactions in the building turned up several sales transactions of smaller apartments that were sold for NIS 1.6 1 million NIS in the last two years. This is a price per square meter of about 21,600 NIS, and according to such a value, a 4-room apartment can also reach 2.5 million NIS and more (if it faces the sea, for example).
Of course, it is still too early to determine whether the title of the ugliest building in the world will lower the value of the apartments, but it is likely that heavier considerations will decide this issue.
Or as an elderly resident who lives on the 5th floor concluded and was very surprised when we told her that her building was chosen as the ugliest in the world: "I haven't heard of it. I will ask my son, but you should know that what they wrote is not true. If this is the ugliest building, then why do they keep putting notes on us? Here who are looking for an apartment in the building? They are always looking here."
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