Tel Aviv - a series of reserves internal and not so internal pt 4: space within Ester HaMaika, Ruth, Shulamit and Ya'el Streets

In his 1995 article 'The Machine in the City: Patrick Geddes' plan for Tel Aviv', Neal Payton attributes the success of Geddes' use of the internal reserve to a specific feature which, in effect, removes its 'internal' status. Many of the 'greens' inserted by Geddes into his sequence of networked neighbourhoods are, in fact, ringed by small roads. Properties face into the spaces and they take on more of a traditional village green status than a 'shared backyard' feel. Payton writes:

Geddes rejected the cul-de-sac model that Mumford advocated, and instead provided an inner perimeter of streets within the block connecting to the exterior of the block in a pinwheel fashion. thus each block could conceptually be understood as a rectangular doughnut with the centre either left void for neighbourhood gardens or for civic structures. In order to discourage through traffic on these interior streets they are not aligned across superblocks.

This is the space that Payton singles out as particularly successful. It is figure 7 in his article as 'one of the few pin-wheel blocks with centre park to be accomplished.'* The space is indeed a high-use, high value small park. Though somewhat crowded - it includes an air-raid shelter and an electricity substation - it also features seating, tables, landscaping, play equipment and one of the enormously successful kiosks which dot central Tel Aviv's parks and boulevards. Find it on Google Map here.

*Confusingly (given that the picture is an aerial photograph, with no street labelling) the image in Payton's article has erroneously been published with south at the top: a warning for those who would seek to use it to locate the space in question.