Merkaz HaCarmel

Landmarks and institutions

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Merkaz HaCarmel neighborhood has developed into one of Haifa's more affluent residential areas, with shopping centers and local businesses including many European-style cafes, and several hotels and museums.^[4] Haifa Zoo began around 1948–1949 as a small animal corner founded by naturalist Pinchas Cohen in the basement of a synagogue on Derekh HaYam Street. complaints from worshippers about the noise led to its relocation, in 1952, to its present site on the slope below Gan HaEm garden.^[5] The station Gan HaEm is the upper terminus of the Carmelit funicular subway system. The Carmelit was built in the late 1950s and runs down Mount Carmel from Merkaz HaCarmel to Paris Square in downtown Haifa.^[6][7]

The Haifa Auditorium was established in 1974,^[1] and the Haifa Cinematheque in 1975.^[8] The Louis Promenade, built in 1992, runs adjacent with Yefe Nof Street and offers views over Haifa Bay and the city.^[9]

Hotels

The neighborhood's hotels are concentrated along HaNassi Avenue, overlooking Haifa Bay. The Dan Carmel hotel, designed by architect Shmuel Rosov, had its cornerstone laid in 1961 and opened in 1963, becoming Haifa's first modern luxury hotel and, for a time, the only five-star hotel in northern Israel.^[10] The hotel, which originally had 220 rooms across fourteen floors, has hosted numerous public figures and celebrities over the years, including Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who rested there for his 80th birthday celebrations, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who held a press conference at the hotel together with Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Yitzhak Navon.^[11]

In 1986, the Dan Panorama Haifa opened as a second hotel in the neighborhood under the same chain, aimed at business travelers.^[12]

Gardens

Gan HaEm ("Mother's Garden"), the neighborhood's principal park, was established in 1913 by gardener Gottfried Meyer on the grounds of the estate of Reverend Martin Schneider of the Carmel Mission, and was originally known as "Gan HaTznobar" ("Pine Garden"), after the pine lined street beside it.^[13] After the Second World War, ownership of the garden passed to the Haifa Municipality, and mayor Abba Hushi renamed it Gan HaEm in tribute to the role of mothers within the family.^[14] The garden spans roughly 400 dunams and includes open lawns, shaded areas, a playground, and an amphitheater that hosts free public concerts during the summer.^[14] It adjoins Haifa Zoo and Nahal Lotem, and its upper Carmelit station takes its name from the park.^[14]

Museums

The city of Haifa, led by mayor Abba Hushi, acquired the former home of Frederick Kisch (who lived there 1934–1939) on HaNassi Avenue in 1958, and the following year established the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art there together with Dutch based collector Felix Tikotin, who donated his collection of Japanese art.^[15][16] No other museum of its kind exists elsewhere in the Middle East. It opened to the public in 1960;^[15] in 1988 it was burgled and about 200 items were stolen, most of which were later recovered after surfacing at a Sotheby's auction in London.^[17]

The Mane-Katz Museum houses the work of Emmanuel Mane-Katz. In 1957, mayor Abba Hushi persuaded Mané-Katz to settle in Haifa, agreeing that the city would provide him with a house and, after his death, establish a museum in his name in exchange for his bequeathing his estate and collections to the city, which he formalized in 1958.^[18] Following his death in 1962, the museum opened in 1977 in the home where he had lived and worked, and it was incorporated into the Haifa Museums group in 2010.^[18]

In 1961, the Moshe Shteklis Museum of Prehistory was founded on the initiative of mayor Abba Hushi and Prof. Moshe Stekelis of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the first museum in the country devoted entirely to prehistory.^[19] Its founding collection was based on the archaeological excavation at Nahal Oren, partly funded by the Haifa Municipality, under an agreement transferring two-thirds of the finds to the museum; additional collections were donated by local researchers Yaakov Olami and Eliezer Warszawski.^[19] The museum opened to the public on 15 February 1962,^[20] initially simply as "the Museum of Prehistory"; it was renamed for Stekelis after his death in 1967.^[21] The museum displays prehistoric finds from archaeological excavations in Carmel, mostly from Nahal Oren and Kebara Cave, and finds from underwater excavations of the Neolithic village of Atlit Yam, off the coast of Atlit.^[22]

Louis Promenade

The Louis Promenade, built in 1992 along Yefe Nof Street, runs between the Dan Carmel and Nof hotels and overlooks Haifa Bay.^[9] It was donated by Paul and May Goldschmidt, Haifa residents originally from South Africa, in memory of their son Louis (Ariel), who was killed in a car accident.^[9] Paul Goldschmidt was the main contractor of the Hanging Gardens of Haifa, and the roughly 400-metre promenade was built as an approach to the gardens' upper entrance.^[9] Along its route stand a German obelisk erected in 1910 to commemorate Kaiser Wilhelm II's 1898 visit to Haifa, and a Belgian naval cannon placed nearby as a symbolic counterweight to the German-Turkish side that lost the First World War.^[9]

Notable residents

• Frederick Kisch, a British army officer and Zionist leader, lived in a house on HaNassi Avenue from 1934 until 1939.^[15]
• The painter and sculptor Emmanuel Mane-Katz settled in Haifa in 1957.^[18]