Decaying Durban?
No one we know goes into Durban’s rundown CBD by choice anymore. Except, that is, for my 85-year-old mother who still takes a combi taxi into town from her home in Musgrave Road once a month to have her hair done. (Cue horrified gasps.) She’s made of sterner stuff than I.
The featured image above is of the Playhouse theatre in Smith Street.
Back in the seventies and eighties, a favourite Friday night outing for the family would be “window-shopping” down West and Smith Streets – especially in the weeks before Christmas, but not only then. The shops closed at 5pm, but you could buy an ice-cream cone and stroll past the brightly lit window displays of department stores like Greenacres and Stuttafords (later Garlicks), Durban Wholesale Jewellers and other flourishing retailers.
