The unusual destiny of a skyscraper that has become a symbol of Johannesburg

Ngwenya Polite, 33, watches the metropolis of the most unequal country in the world sparkle in the sun from her window a few floors below, her almost two-year-old daughter in her arms.

“People in the neighborhood don’t realize how lucky we are,” he confided to AFP. “Here we are safe, it’s clean and the rents are reasonable.”

The raw-style gray concrete tower was completed in 1975. 173 meters high, the Ponte was then the largest residential building in Africa. Initially a sought-after address, for its appearance and its location, it suffered the impoverishment of a center deserted by business circles, primarily due to sanctions against apartheid.

The building then became a hideout for violent gangs in the 1980s and 1990s, headquarters for crime, prostitution and drug trafficking.

It underwent a makeover around fifteen years ago, ahead of the 2010 Football World Cup, to put an end to its sulphurous reputation. The squatters were kicked out. Today, low-middle-class families live there, for rent between 70 and 400 euros per month depending on the surface area.

In a district which remains one of the most disreputable in the city, the tower is fascinating. And continues to scare: “it will still take a lot of time” to change these prejudices, underlines Ngwenya Polite, music teacher in a school.

Inside, the building is hollow, offering a dizzying perspective on the courtyard side and plenty of light for the apartments. But the windows towards this atrium were sealed: at the time of the great disrepair of the 80s and 90s, and in the absence of rubbish premises, people threw their rubbish out of the window.

Today the entrance to Ponte, at the end of an access ramp opening onto a huge empty underground car park on several floors, except for a few boneless carcasses, is guarded night and day by a security hut and turnstiles. You have to show your credentials.

In the evening, it's a place where Uber drivers don't like to hang out. The surrounding streets, poorly lit and littered with trash, are not inviting. “Come on, let’s hurry!”, says one of them to a group who are slow to take position in their white Toyota.

The Dlala Nje association (Let's have fun! in Zulu language) wants to change these perceptions, to highlight the place and its inhabitants. For around ten years, it has been offering walking tours in the neighborhood but also in the very special world of the Ponte tower.