Reconstructing Beirut: Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab City

Chapter Three. 'Ayn El-Mreisse: The Global Market and the Apartment Unit

In the previous chapter I discussed debates that emerged in response to Solidere’s plans to rebuild Beirut’s Central District. I now trace the effects of reconstruction on the daily lives of the residents of ʿAyn el-Mreisse, an adjacent neighborhood. This chapter illustrates the postwar temporality at the local community level. It explores the uncertain relationship between wartime tenants and property owners and details the ways postwar emergencies affected the relationships between family members, neighbors , old and new residents, and political groups of ʿAyn el-Mreisse. In the aftermath of the war, with the physical space changing constantly, the lives of the area’s inhabitants were on hold, resources were unstable, and no one seemed to know clearly “how to play the game,” that is, how to negotiate urban spaces and rights. While property owners deliberated about whether to sell their estates to investors and developers, their tenants had to find alternative housing. Similarly, the displaced population had to negotiate compensation for agreeing to evacuate commercial and residential buildings they had occupied during the war. Since there were many parties involved in the rebuilding process, residents of this neighborhood found it difficult to locate the right governmental agency or private institution to appeal to in the long process of securing urban rights. In ʿAyn el-Mreisse, a multi-ethnoreligious neighborhood, each group had a different vision of how to rebuild and conserve specific sections of the area. Each group constructed its own maps delineating the borders of the neighborhood. Additionally, each group invoked specific spatial experiences to prove its right to contested city spaces and denied the same right to other competing groups. changing lanDscaPes Riding the sarvees1 car through ʿAyn el-Mreisse in the late 1990s, one encountered multiple landscapes and spaces. The sarvees car drove along Chapter 3 ʿayn el-mReisse: the gloBal maRket anD the aPaRtment unit 52 ReconstRucting BeiRut Corniche Street, officially named Rue de Paris, a street that separates the neighborhood from the sea, then moved uphill into narrower streets and alleys. Along the eastern side of Corniche stood old houses, restaurants, food stands, grocery stores, hotels, and car shops. Construction materials and machinery blocked the sidewalks and even part of the streets. Numerous new buildings had already been erected, and many others were under construction. Huge colored banners draped on the newly constructed towers illustrated the future finished buildings and advertised the availability of luxury apartments and offices, as well as the responsible engineering firm, the real estate agent, the elevator company, and the property owners. The passengers of the sarvees openly exchanged stories, engaged in political discussions, and made jokes.Very often, when the sarvees passed one of the new buildings, a passenger would make a comment about how the investors were in the habit of illegally building these luxurious apartments and offices. They described the investors as warlords or as outsiders and explained the source of funding as coming from “oil money or Gulf States dollars (dollarat al-Khaleej) or money from Africa!”2 These statements were usually followed by a moment of silence as the speaker waited for a response from his fellow riders. Once, a middle-aged man who sat next to the driver commented: “These buildings are not built for the Lebanese, Hizballah drum band marching on Corniche Street, officially named Rue de Paris ʿayn el-mReisse 53 or for those of us who protected the city during the war. On the contrary, they are constructed by strangers for other strangers.” A new passenger got into the sarvees and immediately engaged in the ongoing discussion, stating, “I just lost $10,000 to one of those thieves who called himself an investor. He [the investor] promised the depositors high interest rates for investing the money in construction. I gave him my life savings, and now I cannot find him; he vanished. I heard rumors that he had left the country.” Other passengers sympathized with him, saying that they had heard of similar stories, and assured the man that God would compensate him with patience and serenity. Such conversations were expressions of disapproval toward the rebuilding projects and of the helplessness of ordinary people to take part in the reconstruction of their city. Among the gigantic newly constructed buildings stood a number of shorter buildings known as the traditional Beiruti houses (buyūt bayrut al-taqlidiya). The traditional yellow sandstone houses generally consisted of two to four...