The Peacetime Destruction of the Beirut We Knew

Last May and June, I was in Lebanon for the first time in two-and-a-half years. Since 2005, the country had been marred by political instability punctuated by various military events, including Israel’s killing and vandalism spree of 2006. I was expecting to find the country in shambles: decrepit roads, garbage on the streets, dead landscaping… 

Over the next three weeks, I was amazed with what I saw. The streets are clean and workers even pick up cigarette buttes with prongs. Hundreds of new trees have been planted in the sidewalks. The magnolias and jacarandas lining Hamra Street have grown to the point where it is actually pleasant to walk down that street. Most of the bridges and roads vandalized by Israel have been rebuilt or are in progress, and work continues on the Mdeirej bridge. As if that were not enough, brand-new underpasses and bridges are being built in many areas of Beirut. Curbs have been reconfigured to facilitate parking, and some areas (Verdun) have electronic central parking meters. New traffic lights are being installed, and most people actually stop at the ones that are already functional when they turn red. Traffic overall is noticeably better (but still has a long way to go).

At the same time, I was disappointed. It seemed every time I walked down another street, I discovered another old house or building missing. It really hit home when I found out that both old buildings that once housed my Sunday School (near Khalidi Hospital) and my kindergarten school (in an alley off Abdul-Aziz Street) were gone. There is an unbelievable construction frenzy going on in Beirut, especially in Hamra, Ain Mreisseh, and Rawche. Many of these latest buildings reach into the “twenties,” dwarfing even the newer buildings of the 70s and 80s, let alone the old ones built before the middle of the last century. They are out of proportion with their surroundings and cast a long, dark shadow on many dwellings.

As developers get ever greedier and move up into the “twenties” and beyond, one has to worry that a whole category

of six-to-ten story buildings dating from the 50s and 60s may be next on the chopping block; that is, after they’re done decimating the old Lebanese houses of the Teens and 20s and the Art Deco buildings of the 30s and 40s. If these newer buildings begin to fall (and a few have already), Beirut will be uninhabitable for decades to come. It will be plagued by jackhammers demolishing old buildings and digging into the bedrock, bulldozers, dump trucks hauling rock away and bringing in materials, construction workers hammering away… All this on the narrow, congested streets. Pity the inhabitants who have to put up with all this construction, noise, fumes and dust; just because someone wants to replace a perfectly usable eight-story building with a Dubai-style high-rise. And let’s not forget the natural resources, including concrete (from the mountains of Chikka), gravel (from God knows which quarry in the mountains) and fossil fuels that will be consumed.

Also, one has to wonder how the streets of Beirut are going to handle the traffic generated by this latest generation of high-rises. It’s bad enough now!

The trend towards higher buildings might have been an acceptable tradeoff if it involved transferring (selling) development rights from a plot occupied by a desirable old house or building to the site of the proposed new building. Unfortunately, that’s not what is happening. All is being lost!

Some people will say that we should concentrate on saving neighborhoods where there are contiguous concentrations of old buildings, such as Gemmayze*, and forget about the ones scattered among the new buildings, since the setting of the latter has been destroyed anyway. I agree with the first part of the arguments, but I say that Beirut has lost so much of its heritage that we need to cling even to the leftovers. After all, they survived the war! At the very least, they maintain some variety in the streetscape. Imagine a Beirut where every luxury high-rise looks like the next one, all lurking behind walls with code-entry gates.

Before Beirut is transformed into another Dubai, did anyone ask the existing inhabitants if that’s what they really want? Do we really want Beirut to become another Dubai? Are the people going to be pushed out of Beirut into more distant suburbs and be forced to make horrible commutes to work every day? Are we losing the humanitarian Beirut that we all grew up in to a Beirut dominated by ruthless business?

* (Speaking of Gemmayze; just before I left, someone told me that the government of Beirut had lifted the historical protection overlay on the neighborhood, potentially opening it to the sledgehammers. I searched the Internet but came up empty. Also, someone told me that two old mansions in the Sursock neighborhood had recently been demolished. All I found on the Internet was that a garden full of ancient trees between two mansions was being replaced by a high-rise. BAD ENOUGH! But I hope that person was a little mixed up and that no two mansions have been destroyed.) If someone is familiar with these issues, please let me know. I would love to be proven wrong!)

Welcome to my new Enviro-Lebanon blog! As the name indicates, I'll be focusing on the state of the environment in Lebanon as observed on my frequent trips there as well as information gleaned from friends and the media. I will be commenting on both bad and good things I saw. I will be covering a broad range of subjects, some of which might not be considered to be hard-core "Environment." Thus, in addition to the expected rant on, say, bulldozing the landscape, I will also bring up subjects such as smoking or the demolition of buildings. Of course, I will also share some of my hiking experiences in Lebanon. On occasion, I may deviate from the environment theme entirely, but I will always be talking about Lebanon.

Stay tuned!