This meant that 24 neighborhoods, or beehives, had been marked out within the inner city which would allow the residents of each to pursue a more richly fulfilling urban life with a minimum of traffic congestion and air pollution which comes as a result of it.
How this was going to be achieved remained somewhat unclear until last month when the Ministry revealed a further and ingenious course of action which might be called the introduction of the labyrinth factor. By this latest plan, traffic will not be actually banned from entering these beehives, but if one is doing so only to cross them and avoid the central arteries, one is going to regret it. In these neighborhoods, there will be no ‘through’ streets whatever. Instead, the traffic will be channelled in a meandering, backward-forwards, criss-cross, right-left passage which will make driving without a compass in these areas an almost impossible task. This means, of course, setting up a great number of no-entry, oneway and directional signs, but the Ministry of Public Works has already ordered these signs and they are in the process of being delivered.
The first beehive to receive the labyrinthine treatment is Exarchia during this month of April, with Ambelokipi and Kolonaki next on the list. Over half of these two dozen beehives will have had their streets similarly marked by the end of the year. Two major problems immediately suggest themselves. What are car owners in these neighborhoods going to do, and what are going to be the traffic conditions on the major arteries of ‘fast’ traffic circulation which are left? The solution to the first problem seems to lie on the assumption that drivers will have such a deeply engrained yearning to get home that they will find their way to their front doors, either, like Ariadne, by means of thread, or, like Hansel and Gretel, with a trail of rice. Furthermore, car owners will be issued special cards which will permit them to park within their own honeycomb. The second problem presents somewhat more abstract solutions, since it is the big avenues that have caused the major traffic jams even in the prebeehive period. The Ministry suggests a network of underground garages beneath squares or such areas that are already state-owned. If this has a familiar ring, it is because it has been the perennial proposal of every government for the last ten years. Even the junta proposed it, and, moreover, acted on it, by constructing a garage under Klafthmonos Square. As an inspiration for similar subsequent projects, it proved to be a sorry one, since the garage had to be closed several years later due to structural faults.
The restoration of Plaka and its transformation into a pedestrian area in the last few years, however, show that the beehive-and-labyrinth system can work, since the limited number of streets that are open to traffic today have few cars in them. Now, the Ministry of Housing and Environment proposes similar treatment for quarters extending from Plaka along the northern and western areas around the Acropolis; namely, the districts of Psirri, Thission and Gazi. Although none of them contains the number of houses worth preserving that Plaka has, nonetheless the Ministry believes these areas can be upgraded and have features that are worth salvaging.
Lying across Ermou Street from Monastiraki, Psirri is not only the commercial center of nineteenth-century Athens, it is also the quarter which most closely conforms to the street plan of the ancient city. A warren of ironmongers, coppersmiths and potlining shops, it has a modest, human-scaled atmosphere which, properly cleaned up and restored, could attract more residents to inhabit the upper floors of its houses, which – if not neoclassical by any stretch of that elastic term – are small and basically pleasant. The Thission area presents a more hopeful aspect. Firstly, it has always been controlled by a low-height law, so there are few reinforced concrete structures; secondly, it has more old houses than new; thirdly, it has a larger resident community, hence its degradation is less advanced. Gazi, so-called after the city gasworks there lying just beyond Thission, presents the most formidable problems. A wasteland composed largely of automechanic garages, spare-part shops and crane rental agencies, it has been abandoned not only by residents but by most of the small industry that replaced them. Despite cries of quixoticism on the part of critics, the Ministry of Housing and Environment insists on seeing tiled roofs, acroteria, old balconies and other such neoclassical bits-and-pieces even there, in its pursuit of bringing the old commercial center of the city back to life. Meanwhile, architects working with the Ministry are trying to arouse the interest of the people still residing in these areas with meetings and lectures accompanied by slides and photographs of the old, and projections for what can be renewed. And, they claim, the response has been strong. Practically every vehicle of public transport in Athens is displaying posters cheerfully proclaiming ‘tell us where you are going and we will take you there’. How these streetcars named desire are going to weave through the labyrinths, beehives and back lanes of Psirri and Gazi is not altogether clear, but the Ministry not withstanding is going about trying to make Athens more livable in resourceful and original ways.
Problems of Identity
One of the most tiring and time-consuming occupations of the Greek citizen is trying to convince the authorities that he is who he is. Although he is required by law to carry an identification card which bears the essential information and a photograph, the authorities will leave nothing to circumstance or chance. So, except in the simplest transactions, the citizen may be required to present at least half a dozen other documents: official permits, marriage certificates, baptismal documents, military papers, letter of recommendation, social security forms, and what-not. To the delight of the entire adult population (except for much of the bureaucracy), the government recently announced the proposal that I.D. cards be used at last for the purpose for which they were issued; namely, to identify, and that the presentation of this card will be sufficient. By this simple stroke, a tremendous amount of clerical waste will be eliminated, and for the time saved, the productivity of ihe country is bound to be enhanced.
The identification situation for foreigners, however, is less rosy. The new glossy Alien’s Residence Permit booklet, which serves as an I.D. card, is, in appearance, a great improvement on the former paper which had to be held together with cellotape after a few months’ use. In content, however, the following statement, as printed, reads: ‘making any false statement to a person carrying out registration duties will render the offender liable to a capital punishment (imprisonment) [sic] or to a fine or both.’ Foreigners should be reassured, however, not to expect a figure in a black stocking mask and holding an axe on their next visit to the alien’s police: the word ‘capital’ has been hastily inked out.
