Tension at the tram station

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For SkyWatch Friday watch a twilight sky over the Jerusalem Hills change color.

The Calder statue, Homage to Jerusalem--Stabile, sits high atop Mt. Herzl where the artist intended it to be.

Half an hour later, at 5:26, it was almost night.

I was still standing at the tram and bus station, waiting for my connection, for way too long on that bloody November 5.
A white police van, blue lights flashing, was sitting half on the platform.
Just a few hours earlier, a terrorist had killed several people by plowing into them with his white van at another light rail station on the east side of Jerusalem.
We the public, dependent on public transportation, felt nervous, like sitting ducks, wondering if we would be the next targets in the wave of vehicular terrorism sweeping over Jerusalem's tram stations.
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Calder and cranes dot the blue sky

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Calder and cranes.

Some Jerusalem sky for a change, for SkyWatch Friday.

Calder's "Homage to Jerusalem--Stabile" was installed on the top of Mount Herzl in 1977.
Who dreamed back then that it would someday have to share the hill with a new-fangled TRAM!
Mt. Herzl is the terminus for Jerusalem's light rail; it's where tram meets bus.

From the size of those new cranes, it looks like the Calder will soon be in the shadow of several highrises.
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A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together ...

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Around  2005 they had to temporarily move Jerusalem's  65-ton Calder sculpture a few blocks away so they could build an underground car park for the future light rail passengers.
The terminus of the tram would be right there, on top of Mt. Herzl.

On the night of  March 12, 2008 two huge cranes slowly moved it back (in three pieces) to Holland Square,  the original location, the one that the artist had chosen.
See a slideshow of how they did it at the Jerusalem Foundation website.

In the following months it got a fresh coat of Calder red, a stone plaza with stone benches was built, and lights were installed.
Enlarge the picture above to see it being worked on in 2008.

Eventually everything was in place, neat and tidy; but it never attracted  people.
Everything was steel, stone, and concrete.

Guess what!  This is how it looks NOW, for the last few months!
Everything is torn up again.
I have no idea what the plan is.
Apparently something greener, softer, shadier, and more inviting.
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Meanwhile the small crew of Arab workmen built themselves a wood and plastic shelter, a booth where they can have a smoke, boil some Turkish coffee, and warm up.
And then go out and dismantle the plaza some more. 
The winter wind can be fierce up there when it sweeps in from the valley. 

The deep Soreq Valley cuts through the Jerusalem Hills.
Some say that the sculpture, called "Homage to Jerusalem--Stabile," is meant to mimic the contours of the hills.

 Here are the American artist-engineer Alexander Calder's initials and the year he created this stabile.
(Oh, and there's the tram in the station, too.)
His sculpture  was installed in Jerusalem the next year, 1977, but Calder did not live to see that fine moment.

I hope we will all live long enough to see the completion of all the digging and re-digging and construction and balagan (mess, chaos) along Herzl Boulevard.
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(More posts about the Calder are here.)
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Jerusalem's Holland Square

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Our Prime Minister Netanyahu is paying a state visit to The Netherlands today and tomorrow.

Jerusalem has a Holland Square.
According to photographs in a Harvard archive it was built in the mid 1970s.

A lot--almost everything--has changed since then, and the big tree is probably the only original survivor of how Holland Square used to be.
Many lanes have been added to the once-narrow Herzl Boulevard.
Parallel to the street, the light rail was just last year completed.

The Calder stabile, installed in the old Holland Square in 1977, had to be dismantled and moved while underground parking for the tram was being built.
Now it is back in place, again with a panoramic view of the Jerusalem Hills, but now sharing the top of Mt. Herzl with the final station of the tram.
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Red sculpture in a blue sky in a tram window

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Here's a post for both SkyWatch Friday and Weekend Reflections.

I got off Jerusalem's new tram at its terminus, Mt. Herzl, and transferred to my bus home.

I have learned the hard way that each of the two carriages can, and usually does, carry 250 passengers!
Most of us are standing, or trying to.

BUT, the tram, inside and out, is very good for reflections, as witnessed in the top photo.
See the famous "Calder red" color?

Across the street from the tram station stands, once again, Calder's huge "Homage to Jerusalem--Stabile."
It had to be moved while they were digging the underground park-and-ride garage, which has still not been finished.

The blue sky is typical for Israel's long and dry summer; it is normal to have no rain for 5 or 6 months.

To learn more about the sculpture and see some funny photos of its patchwork paint job, see previous posts.
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Clouds, hills, and art

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Jerusalem's sky turned cloudy and moody today, in time for SkyWatch Friday.

They say that Calder's "Homage to Jerusalem--Stabile" was meant to resemble the Jerusalem Hills.
The artist chose this spot high on Mount Herzl, overlooking Ein Kerem and the many little mountains.
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Sitting waiting for the bus today, I saw for the first time just how well the red slope parallels the first green slope.

It's a wonderful place for skywatching.

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Seeing red in Jerusalem

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A lightpole's shadow climbs over a bench for Hey Harriet's "Shadow Shot Sunday."

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Jerusalem does not do much with Valentine's Day (it being a goyishe holiday and all).

So this is the closest thing I can find that is even vaguely heart-shaped.

But at least it is red, Calder red!

(Remember the posts about it getting painted, here and here?)

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Alexander Calder's "Homage to Jerusalem - Stabile" was dedicated in 1977 on Mount Herzl.

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May all you blogger friends and readers receive, and give, lots of love on Valentine's Day and every day.

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Calder red

Yay! The Calder stabile has been painted in Calder red! I saw the two guys up there painting and grabbed this shot from a moving bus.
(Provided I have a seat on the bus, I always have the little camera in my hand at the ready. )
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To learn more about the sculpture and to see how it looked as a red and white patchwork, please see the post of Oct. 12.
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A coat of many colors

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Huh? What's going on here?
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"Homage to Jerusalem - Stabile" was the last statue planned by the famous American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and was installed in Jerusalem, on Mt. Herzl, in 1977.

Three years ago it had to be moved because an underground parking lot for Jerusalem's still under-construction tram line had to be built just there. Now it has been returned. To see slides on how the 65-ton metal statue was transported click here.

The by-now rusty looking metal was supposed to be restored to its original bright color with "Calder Red" paint, especially ordered from abroad. So what's with this white paint?? Is it some kind of Grundfarbe (base coat?)?
It looks funny. You can even see it from my house, across the valley, sticking out like a sore thumb on Mt. Herzl.

Calder was a mechanical engineer [as is my dear daughter, who also carries the artistic gene].
He pioneered the stabile, an abstract construction that is completely stationary. His examples were termed stabiles to distinguish them from mobiles, their moving counterparts, also invented by Calder.

In a catalogue essay Marc Glimcher writes that “Calder's invention of the stabile set the stage for a major revolution. The nature of his compositions along with the materials and construction allowed the idea of abstraction to expand beyond the gallery, the studio or the museum and spill out onto city streets… This unprecedented accomplishment simultaneously restored the place of monumental, public art and claimed it for abstraction. Scores of artists in the following generations have taken up the challenge of monumental abstraction, and in doing so have generated many of the ground-breaking developments seen in the last forty years of contemporary sculpture.”