After two false starts, the City of Cape Town has approved the first four changes to street names in the city, honouring South African greats, reports the Cape Times.
Nelson Mandela Boulevard will be the new name of the Eastern Boulevard, while the world’s first heart transplant specialist Professor Christiaan Barnard will be honoured in the name of the street currently called Oswald Pirow Street. Albert Lithuli, the first South African Nobel Peace Prize winner and an ANC President, will be honoured in the street section between the Civic Centre and Artscape. A Khoisan leader Krotoa will be honoured in a section of Castle Street, between Adderley and Burg Street.
Cape Town is the last South African city to “rename apartheid era streets and places”, says the report.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
POSTSCRIPT 1/1/2011: A relative of the Khoisan Krotoa has protested to the City of Cape Town about the use of his relative’s first name without her surname, given that the City has not consulted his family, reports the Cape Times. Jakobus Faasen says that his relative was the first Khoi person to marry a Dutch person, and her married surname was Van Meerhoff.
As a Tourist Guide I have had the unpleasant task of showing tourists the unsightly, smelly, and sad settlement of about 600 African refugees that had developed over four months around Greenmarket Square, outside the Central Methodist Church, and the historic Town House building which houses the Michaelis Art Collection. Yesterday the City of Cape Town’s Law Enforcement Department took action in encouraging the refugees to leave, after it had won a court case and followed the process which had been prescribed. Continue reading →
