The Beirut municipality’s plan to tear up Jesuit Garden in Ashrafieh to build an underground parking complex has outraged local residents and preservation activists who are gearing up to fight the project.
Pascale Choueiri Saad, Green Cedar Lebanon Co-founder and publisher and general director of Beyond Magazine, said during a musical and cultural event, held on Friday, July 26, 2013, that this place is very much appreciated by people.
“The municipality has promised to replant a garden on the ground level once the underground parking is complete, but we insist that the large trees, some of them decades old, are irreplaceable. Saad questioned the municipality’s stated motives of reducing traffic and boosting local businesses by providing parking.
The Jesuit Garden is a public park in the Rmeil District of Beirut. Covering 44,000 square meters, its proximity to the Greek Orthodox and Getawi hospitals make it a popular destination for people visiting relatives and friends at the hospitals.
They want to tear down our heritage, they want to deprive us of any free leisure that our surroundings give us in order to build parking complexes.
