Ponte City · Ten Thousand People in a Cylinder

Ponte City in Johannesburg is a cylindrical high-rise block with a hollow core, so that looking up you see a ring of sky. It was once packed with tenants, rubbish piled up in the atrium, and in the 1990s it was taken over by gangs for a time.

The building came to be described as “the place where the most people jumped”, and some say the echo in the atrium is never the same twice. It was later refurbished into middle-class flats and became a showcase of “urban turnaround”.

Those who moved in say the echo in the atrium is just as loud; it is only that no one looks down now.

Urban Legends / Johannesburg · South Africa / 1975