Today’s picture shows a block of flats at 32 North Street, Greyville, in Durban and comes from the Facebook page Durban Down Memory lane. The picture was probably taken shortly after the block was built in the 1930s. 

North Street is the heart of what today is known as Block AK, and although the neighbourhood was demolished in the 1970s, the road can still be seen running through the open lots today.

Judging by an old aerial map scheme from the 1930s, the apartments featured were probably on the south-west corner of North Street and Osborne Street today – so among the trees and on the right of today’s picture shot from the balcony of Independent Newspapers. The scar that was the tragedy of forced removals at Block AK is still very evident.

Greyville which developed on the flat land west of the city centre is one of the city’s oldest suburbs populated by working classes of all races who couldn’t afford to live in the upper Berea. It also had easy access to the city, which you can see in the background of today’s picture.

By the 1930s the area was predominantly Indian, but people of all nationalities lived in the cosmopolitan area and kept shops in First Avenue. The Group Areas Act ended the vibrant organic community that made Block AK its home. Greyville was declared off-limits to Indians by the Act. Eventually Block AK was declared a slum under the Slums Act, and demolished in the 1970s. Former Block AK are still fighting land claims today.

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