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Nahalat Shiva has become a quaint centre for visitors who want to shop and relax.
When seven prominent Jerusalemites founded Nahalat Shiva in 1869 to escape the Old City's cramped and unhealthy conditions, they hardly envisioned it would become a chic venue for boutiques, pubs and restaurants more than a century later.
But today, Nahalat Shiva's pedestrian mall is the first step towards converting the entire Nahalat Shiva area into a centre of recreation and night-life, according to architect Nahum Meltzer.
"We hope to extend the mall into Rivlin and Batei Feingold streets and on to Zion Square to connect with the Ben-Yehuda mall," he explains. "When it is completed, it will be a centre for tourists and young people, along the lines of Old Jaffa."
The building style in this downtown neighbourhood was the same as in the Old City and until recently, the area had not undergone significant structural changes since it was built.
The recent renovations are the first systematic attempts to give the neighbourhood a facelift. "Almost all of the...