The old picture this week takes in the five-storey block of flats Delrenee Mansions at the corner of 45 Joseph Nduli (formerly Russell) Street and Diakonia Avenue (St Andrews Street). The view is looking down Joseph Nduli towards the bay in the Albert Park area. Next door is the block Kings Lynn.
The block was likely designed by Scottish architect Stanley Nelson Sercombe and erected in 1934. The architectural website Artefacts does not give the name or address of the building but notes it’s on the corner of Russell and St Andrews streets.
The old picture was taken on February 15, 1989. The caption reads: “The future of a derelict Durban building ‒ on the corner of St Andrews and Russell streets ‒ which has raised the ire of residents in the area remains uncertain pending a Pietermaritzburg Appeals Board decision.
“An application to see the once residential building, Delrenee Mansions, turned into shops and offices has been turned down as the property was zoned general residential, according to the city’s chief town planner Mr Gareth Williamson.”
There is no mention of Delrenee Mansions in Facts About Durban or another source of interesting anecdotes, the Facebook group Durban Down Memory Lane.
The only story connected to the block is a sad one published by the Northern Natal News. During World War 2, Staff Sergeant Jacobus Martens, of the Umvoti Mounted Rifles, was reported as missing on June 20, 1943. It was later confirmed he was killed on January 28, 1944, when the train in which he was travelling as a prisoner of war was mistakenly bombed by the United States Air Force, on the Allerona Bridge in Umbria, Italy. The train was carrying more than 1 000 Allied servicemen from Italy to Germany. At least 400 servicemen were killed in what was described as one of the worst friendly fire incidents of the war.
His young widow Scottish-born Olive Margaret Martens (nee van Heerden), a copy typist with the council, lived at 11 Delrenee Mansions. The couple were married on May 3, 1941, in the Methodist Church at Doonside.
Today retail establishments have taken over the building’s ground floor, although it still functions as residential flats, as Shelley Kjonstad’s picture shows. The tree from the early picture has grown substantially over the last 30 years.
The Independent on Saturday