West Street looking towards the beach in 1882
West Street looking towards the beach in the mid 1930s
West Street looking towards the beach in 2018. Picture: Motshwari Mofokeng/ANA
Durban - This week’s pictures of old and new Durban come from the book, Durban Past and Present, edited by Allister Macmillan. It was published in 1935 and printed in Durban by William Brown and Davis Ltd of 475-481 Smith Street.
The book was brought to The Independent on Saturday by reader Graham Richardson, who hoped it would inspire a number of interesting Then and Now features.
This week’s set takes a look at Dr Pixley kaSeme (West) Street from Dorothy Nyembe (Gardiner) Street looking towards the sea. In the first picture, shot in 1882, the building on the left was the city’s original fire station, and the building on the right, erected in 1866, was the first courthouse.
The second picture taken in about 1935 shows the clock tower of the Post Office, which was the city’s original town hall and the city hall built in 1910. The picture taken this week, left, by our lensman Motshwari Mofokeng shows not much has changed with the two public buildings, but that the city has grown up substantially around them.
- 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 who send pictures digitally - images should be about 1MB - can address them, with the relevant information, to [email protected] If the pictures are in hard copy format, they can be posted to The Editor, Old Pictures, The Independent on Saturday, PO Box 47549, Greyville, 4023.