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Published: November 26th 2008
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Construction site at my house
Just outside my living room window......which begins work at 7am every morning, including weekends. Okay, I'm cheating on this blog because I live here.
Ashrafieh has converted from a posh district of the city to a large construction site. Literally, it's nearly every block that has a new apartment building coming up. What's happening?
At about 6am, small groups of Syrian construction workers start walking up the hill from Sodeco to various construction sites around the district. Each one in almost business-suit long pants, carrying his lunch in a plastic bag, heads for the buildings. By 7am, pumps are pumping, engines are humming, hammers are pounding, metal is clanging, dirt is flying. My once quiet apartment on a cul-de-sac away from the honking horns is now 2.5 meters away from a new building going up. All this continues through until 5-6pm, depending on which construction site it is.
For me, I wake up at 7am to the sound of hammers, metals, concrete being poured, and Syrian workers yelling. By 830am, I am at work, a building which is surrounded by three construction sites on three sides of the building. Something is grinding, hammering, humming, pumping, or otherwise making loud noise to mix with the honking horns below.
Yesterday, I was reading
Construction 2
Just to the south of my balcony. Though they are a few blocks away, the noise is still audible in my living room. a magazine which said that most of downtown Cairo was built in the 1850s and 1860s. I instantly wondered if Cairo in those days was filled with loud banging and noises of construction, just like Ashrafieh today. I wonder if its residents were annoyed by the dust and disruption as we are today.
Are there that many Lebanese waiting for apartments who can pay ridiculously high prices for these huge apartments?
What will Ashrafieh be when all these apartments will be built?
Where all these people park who will move into the luxury apartments?
With the streets already packed at rush hour, what will another 1,000 or so apartments do to the traffic in this neighborhood?
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