BULLDOZED! Buffet De La Gare. Alas, it is no more!

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It used to be the hangout for the ultra-hip of Addis. The place to see and be seen. Afework Tekele described it as “a small international café with all the trimmings that you find in such similar places, be it in Hong Kong, Paris or New York…You meet all kinds of people from all spectrum[s] of life. I think it is a kind of melting pot.” It was the centre of city life and “the hipster place of Addis Abeba in the 1970s and 80s.” Buffet De La Gare. Alas, it is no more! A casualty of development, it was bulldozed yesterday to make way for the La Gare Eagle Hills development.

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In-Picture

IMPERIAL WITNESS

Excavated earth now surrounds the gilded bronze Lion of Judah Monument near Legehar (La Gare) railway station on Ras Mekonnen Avenue, as preparations get underway to move the monument 60 metres backward to make way for road-widening works. Nothing on the monument itself will change; it will be carefully relocated intact, continuing to face the Addis Abeba Municipality Office. Standing atop a black granite pedestal bearing the likenesses of Ethiopia's last four emperors, the Lion was sculpted by...

WHEELED EVOLUTION

A bike lane once foreign to Addis Abeba is now busy serving its intended purpose, and then some. Along African Avenue, beside the walls of the Skylight Hotel, a man rides a small electric scooter while another pushes a two-wheeled wheelbarrow loaded with cement sacks along the same lane. Intended exclusively for cyclists, the lane has become an unlikely meeting point for two forms of wheeled transport, leaving one to wonder whether the rules call for a citation or applause. The scene captures a...

STREET BALLERS

Children kick a ball around the parking lots surrounding Entoto Park, turning an otherwise quiet morning into an impromptu football pitch. One boy, wearing the jersey of St. George Football Club, one of Ethiopia's most decorated teams, is a reminder that football remains very much alive. The government has built football fields across the city, yet it is still common to find people playing in streets, parking lots and open spaces. Perhaps the fields are too costly for some, or perhaps football i...

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