On Friday, 27 November of 2020, Abu Dhabi’s skyline underwent a drastic alteration. This change cannot be described as anything but an erasure, wiping clean a remnant of the past, a reminder of recent economic failures.
In the days and weeks leading up to D-day (demolition day), I witnessed a flurry of activity along the corniche. Workers hastily constructed scaffolding and secured metal studs, to which they attached white, corrugated metal sheets onto a new two-story, rectangular structure. It remained plain until, a few days later, they plastered on its side a giant MODON sign. I noticed the glazed front of this fancy white cube as I left Mina Zayed in the opposite direction. The seamless glass surface told me that this latest waterfront property was meant for watching something. In other words, it was for the viewing pleasure of.
Uninterrupted sight lines pointed directly at Mina Plaza, a tower block comprised of four unfinished mixed-use structures that were constructed in 2007 (great timing, I know). I first came across these buildings in 2015 and thought they were newly undergoing construction, but they sat there, dormant, for another two years. It was only later that I understood why these windowless concrete monsters slumbered within an area expecting massive, and rapid, change.
Seen as (I assume) the beginning of a masterplan to overhaul the old port of Mina Zayed, the plaza was meant to usher in a steady transformation from industrial, warehouse district to a sleek, contemporary neighborhood. It is a common aspiration around these parts after all. Thanks to the US housing market crash, however, we were spared the influx of new specialty coffee shops. As I write this more than a decade later, I fear once again for the inhabitants of the Mina.
Beginning operations in 1972, Mina Zayed (or Port Zayed) had been Abu Dhabi’s main sea- terminal until the Khalifa Port (KIZAD) was established in 2012. Businesses and communities have, since then, sluggishly moved their warehouses and offices to bigger, shinier ones in KIZAD and Musaffah. Many businesses elected to stay and continue to set up shop in the old port, famous for its karak-serving cafeterias and perfectly paired sea views. The value of enjoying a hot beverage on the Mina’s breakwaters with scenes of the (Arab? Persian? American?) Gulf, an old Abu Dhabi tradition, skyrocketed with the completion of the Louvre Abu Dhabi just across the bay. In short economic terms, warehouses needed to go, and restaurants needed to replace them.
Replacing warehouses with restaurants also means replacing the people who frequent this place. The predominantly South Asian and Iranian populations who work on commercial ships and man the storage houses call Mina Zayed home. The fruit and vegetable market, the Iranian souq, the plant market, Bab Al Madina Karak, and all the makeshift spaces in between are inhabited by this community. Everyone else (myself included) is a visitor.
The busy street housing the Iranian souq and plant market is one of my favorite places in Abu Dhabi. A stone’s throw away from Mina Plaza ground zero, the plant market is where I bought my first plants. Shop 23 (because I never remember the actual names) is where I brought Clem home from. Clem is my baby clementine tree that currently sits on my balcony. Or was it Shop 25? Regardless, it’s the best place to get lost and walk through a wardrobe door into a land of tropical rainforests and dusty ceramic pots of every shape, color, and size. Wait... what about the pots?!
The Mina Plaza towers came down early on a Friday morning. With a snap, crackle, and a pop the towers fell like dominoes in an event that recorded the tallest building ever demolished using explosives (of course Guinness was there). The surrounding area and roads, which were closed off and evacuated, swelled with dust and debris in a sight not unlike an oncoming sandstorm. When all had settled, I could see holes in the boards enclosing the plaza where debris had shot out, eerily reminiscent of marks left by bullets.
As men in the nearby souq brushed dust off of handmade carpets that weren’t properly covered, I walked into the plant market once more, interested (and concerned) to see what damage the blast had done to the ceramics. While most of the mass-produced pots remained surprisingly
unscathed (I assume this is because they were stacked so tightly), there were shattered pots along the edges of this mini-terracotta army. These unfortunate outliers did not survive, which struck a chord with me perhaps for the reason that they represented the beginning of a change, or the commencement of a series of losses.
I asked the vendor if I could keep the pieces, and he said yes. I asked if they would be reimbursed for any damage caused by the explosion, and he chuckled and said no. I asked if he thought he would still be here next year, and he said he didn’t know. But life goes on: the plant and carpet sellers still do their business while they can, haggling with old women who walk away only to turn around at the sound of “last price”. The roads surrounding the plaza have reopened and people wait at bus stops in front of giant mounds of debris, a scene almost out of a post-apocalyptic comedy.
From the street, I step back into the jungle, pushing my way past vines and broad banana leaves. I inhale the fresh scent of this massive, untamed garden as a stray cat perks up from its nap inside a bush that costs AED 120, or AED 70 if you’re smart. For a moment everything seems unchanged and alright, but through the branches and past the parked Nissan Patrols I catch a glimpse of the mound and recall an EMINEM lyric from “Lose Yourself”:
Snap back to reality, ope there goes gravity...
In this case, gravity claimed a Guinness World Record.