President Hotel in Jerusalem was a small distinguished hotel with an intimate\u00a0atmosphere. It was designed by architects Alexander Friedman and Meir Rubin and opened in 1954. Well located in the posh Talbiya neighborhood, it was used, among the rest, by diplomats and government personnel for official meetings. But several\u00a0incidents in\u00a0the course of years have\u00a0cast\u00a0a shadow over its warm atmosphere. Among the rest, a child lost his life drowning in the hotel swimming pool, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion got a strange illness while staying there and workers did not get their salaries on time and had to strike.\u00a0At the beginning of the 1990s it served as temporary residence for immigrants. It’s dining room was later transformed into an office area of a hotel management company. Soon after, it was closed and left abandoned.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_1_placeholder\n
We start our tour at the entrance and reception hall.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_2_placeholder\n
Room number?<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_3_placeholder\n
A mezzanine floor provides a view to the entrance hall. Here’s a view up from the entrance hall to the mezzanine level<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_4_placeholder\n
Here’s the wall behind the small podium on the mezzanine<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_5_placeholder\n
and another section of the mezzanine, with probably wall wooden covers \/\u00a0cupboards<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_6_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_7_placeholder\n
the mezzanine leads to balconies above the main lobby<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_8_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_9_placeholder\n
A couple of rooms in the ground floor still have their original wash rooms<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_10_placeholder\n
with a nice ventilation element<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_11_placeholder\n
In the kitchen, simple elements on the ceiling \/ roof bring plenty of natural light inside<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_12_placeholder\n
and a recent\u00a0decoration<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_13_placeholder\n
The dining room ceiling knew better days<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_14_placeholder\n
Corroded rebars from leaking water caused concrete elements from the ceiling to break and collapse.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_15_placeholder\n
We now descend to the basement level, where the bar area used to be.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_16_placeholder\n
The bar level is located on the same level as the\u00a0swimming pool area. The bar opened to the pool to practically create a continuous space, but currently the glass doors between the bar and the pool are sealed<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_17_placeholder\n
and the way out is through a narrow eerie corridor<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_18_placeholder\n
In 2011, a Jerusalem group of artists named “Bait Reik” (“Empty House”) entered the building, renovated its bar and swimming pool area, and turned them into an unofficial art venue<\/a><\/p>\nngg_shortcode_19_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_20_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_21_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_22_placeholder\n Half covered, it has a simple ceiling where\u00a0concrete beams serve as the decoration<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_23_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_24_placeholder\n Decorative pools and a pedestrian bridge over them dominate the back part of the pool and garden area<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_25_placeholder\n We shall now ascend to the room floors.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_26_placeholder\n This area marks the floor corridor<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_27_placeholder\n but the room floors are completely destroyed.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_28_placeholder\n Nothing is left from the interior.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_29_placeholder\n Holes in the floors mark places where pipes and cables where placed<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_30_placeholder\n Shattered windows and doors are scattered everywhere<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_31_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_32_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_33_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_34_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_35_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_36_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_37_placeholder\n A view to the YMCA building<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_38_placeholder\n The optimistic elevator motor<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_39_placeholder\n and pipes on the roof<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_40_placeholder\n Currently the building is waiting for approval of plans that will turn it into a complex of a hotel and dozens of apartments<\/a>. More about the hotel history in this article<\/a> (Hebrew).<\/p>\n Visited October 8th, 2016.<\/p>\n ENTERING THIS BUILDING IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once a small intimate hotel with distinguished guests and some “bad luck” incidents. Today an abandoned shattered and battered building, which still holds some clues to its past glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[16,80],"class_list":["post-7377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-jerusalem","tag-architecture","tag-urban-exploration"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7377"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7386,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7377\/revisions\/7386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}