DURBAN - The picture of old Durban this week features the Belaire Suites Hotel on North Beach and was taken from the Facebook group Durban Down Memory Lane.
Kari Price posted the photographs as her maternal grandfather Anthony Porter was a mosaic artisan and worked on the distinctive artwork that decorates the building. He did mosaic work on buildings in Durban and all the way up the east coast in places like Maputo (The Polana) and Beira in Mozambique.
The Belaire Suites building was completed in 1955, the same year the ice rink was built.
Facebook correspondent Barry Hirst remembers his family moving into the block that year while it was still being completed.
He remembers at age 4 that the mosaic was still being put on the building. The old picture was probably taken in the late 1950s.
Today, the Belaire Suites Hotel is a four-star, self-catering hotel offering magnificent sea views. Its 124 apartments can accommodate 315 people.
Our photographer Shelley Kjonstad captured it this week.
The Independent on Saturday appeals to readers who have old pictures of Durban and other parts of the province to send them to us for consideration.
If any readers are featured in the old picture, we will do our best to recreate the scene with them in it again.
Readers sending pictures digitally - images should be about 1MB - can address them, with the relevant information, to [email protected]
Hard copy format photographs can be posted to The Editor, Old Pictures, The Independent on Saturday, PO Box 47549, Greyville 4023.
Independent On Saturday