In Defense of Zaitouneh Bay

I have been very vocal in my criticism of Solidere and its treatment of the once bustling pre-war business heart of Beirut, turning it into a lifeless, unconnected, sterile and artificial piece of overpriced real estate, a practice that has excluded Beirut residents, who can barely afford to shop there, almost entirely. But, not all that is new and architecturally and environmentally adventurous is necessarily bad. Zaitouneh Bay, for example, is a remarkable and rare success in my view. Its marina, restaurants, promenade and clubhouse add a badly needed touch of class and elegance to a city that has to date failed to recapture the success of its long gone golden age. I was therefore shocked when a group of protestors decided to hold a sit in at that beautiful marina and on its immaculate boardwalk.

The protestors, of course, were perfectly welcome to sit, to shout slogans, to carry signs and do all the things protestors do, but I’m sure, deep inside, each one must have felt slightly out of place and uncomfortable at some point. They may have had to right to be there as all members of the public do, but the point they wished to drive home about wanting to reclaim the St. George Beach and how they were so poor they could not afford to eat at any of the restaurants in Zaitouneh Bay somehow did not ring true. First of all, there's a Starbucks and Classic Burger Joint there that are very affordable, second, most Lebanese come to Zaitouneh to pretend to be one of those lucky few who are rich, to breathe the same rarified air that the rich breathe, to sit and enjoy a meal and watch all the yachts and dream of one day owning one, they don't go to Zaitouneh to whine about how poor they are!

Third, and in my view most important of all, a beach that was once in the 60s and 70s a great place to spend a weekend in the heart of the city, is gone forever and has gone the same way as quaint old arched stone houses with red tiled roofs, or trolley cars (tramway) on Beirut streets, or that amazing clock face formed from clipped grass and flowers that used to adorn the center of town around Martyrs Square before the war. You can't turn back the clock, and frankly I wouldn't want to! I don't want 60s Lebanon to be faithfully recreated anew, it would be entirely inadequate for our modern needs, it would ignore the social and cultural changes that have taken place over the last half century, it would be just as much an eyesore as an inappropriately tall building in a neighborhood of smaller buildings.  

Imagine trolley cars on Beirut's clogged chaotic streets today. Impractical, right? We are not a trolley car nation any more; we are an SUV and GMC nation! The St. George Beach, the hotel, its famous bar, The St. Georges Club, of which my father was a member before the war, were a product of their time. They were exhilarating times to be sure, an age when travel was still an event involving steamer trunks and smoke stacks and when air travel was still in its infancy with Constellations and Comets giving us a glimpse of something great to come. But, that's all in the past. Build a museum if you must to 60s Beirut, build a theme park if you care, but don't attack the modern and the new simply because its different from what existed on that plot of land before.

I am a regular visitor of Zaitouneh Bay and I am not ashamed to say that I too look at those yachts and dream that one day I'll be rich too and maybe I too can own a yacht, or maybe I'll be lucky enough to be invited on board one just to look around. Human beings are dreamers, the happy dream of what's to come in their life; the muddled and confused cling to the past. Move on Beirutis, move on!