It’s that time of year when the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation celebrates the rich history of Joburg with a weekend of interesting tours, films and exhibitions on Saturday 30th September and Sunday 1 October 2017.
From randlord mansions in Parktown to Art Deco flats flats in Killarney, or a visit to the Wilds in Houghton or the Rand Club in town, there is much to see and learn about.
Download the full brochure here
Book update
Furiously working on several pages at once while digging through hundreds of archive photos. The difficulty is working out what to exclude, yet while there is so much, there is also very little.
There are countless old photos available of the popular streets and buildings, but few or none of those slightly off the beaten track. With so many amazing Johannesburg books that have come before, I want to try to offer something different and unique while still covering the key landmarks.
Some photos are so old that showing the same position today is impossible. In many, there is simply nothing that exists today to reference. Others have been totally obscured by office blocks and new developments.
An example is the picture above which was taken from Rissik Street looking north-east around 1889 showing Pritchard and Eloff Streets. The buildings in the block in the foreground were just to the left of the Rissik Street Post Office and eventually become Mosely Buildings and Stuttafords. In the middle ground is the first St. Mary’s on Eloff Street which was close to where Markham’s is today. Every building in the picture no longer exists. Only Observatory Ridge in the background is still discernible.
Johannesburg 1912 - suburb by suburb research 
Maybe next to some of the special old pics (where a new pic wont be recognisably the same spot) a map instead, showing where it was taken?
Absolutely! Great idea for here, but not for the book. Fortunatley, for every photo that doesnt work, there is a queue to replace it…