THE old picture this week features part of the Riverside Hotel, at least the tower block that was built in the hotel’s back garden in the late 1960s.
The old picture appeared in the Sunday Tribune on February 15, 1981, with the caption: “Council grants flats zoning to flats built in the late 60s. Flat sales began this weekend.”
Today, the block, known as Athlone Heights, is separate from the Athlone Hotel, which is now called the Riverside Hotel. The front garden of the complex is now a series of apartments called Everglades.
We have included the wider angled view of Shelley Kjonstad’s pictures to give you a feel of the area around the block.
The Athlone Garden’s Hotel, according to a 1940s brochure singing the hotel’s praises, was set in 14 acres of park-like gardens, complete with a la carte restaurant, ballroom, outside dancing, mini golf and tearooms.
The furnishings are tasteful and all rooms have private baths, telephones and radios. There is also “a delightful veranda café where one can combine the drinking in of the magnificent views with the wines of the country,” added the brochure.
Rates then were 25 shillings a night, 35 with breakfast.
The complex became the Athlone Gardens Hotel after the opening of Athlone Bridge in 1927. It was the gateway to the new suburb of Durban North.
Before that, there was a hotel on the property which was on a piece of land called Gavin’s Farm, and it was called the Riverside Hotel. It was popular because, being outside of the then-municipal area, liquor was obtainable at all hours, so the hotel became a favourite for visiting sailors.
On the Facts About Durban website, Elizabeth Robb, born 1894, has her memories of old Durban recorded. “The old Riverside Hotel, which was out of the borough, was rebuilt and is now called the Athlone Hotel,” she recalls.
Another venue remembered in the Athlone Hotel of the 60s to 80s is The Barn, a live music venue popular with locals and hosting groups like The Blarney Brothers.
* BLOB Further to last week’s Then and Now which featured the old Durban Pavilion, Lynne Goodman wrote in to tell the story of her friend Pat Liversage.
Liversage told her: “I was three when I went with my parents to search backstage after the fire, for my father’s violin. He and other musicians had staged a concert there and were to perform the next day.
They were all searching through the soot and ash and he found it. The case was damaged but the violin was intact.”
Liversage remembers this as being in 1938 or 1939. Her father, John West Kell, better known as Jack, came to Durban from Yorkshire to play in the Durban Municipal Orchestra.