Hi,
Reading C Power Station is what the stack in North Tel-Aviv is hiding. The stack is the entrance to Yitzhak Rabin Center, but there is no sign or explanation on it. Even the guard of the center does not know what he is standing next all day. And I wondered several times passing by, what is it.
As a secret power station, it was built in an underground bunker, which is 30 m deep and 12,000 square meters (about 100 on 120 m hall for scale). Located near Eretz Israel Museum in north of Tel-Aviv. Israel electric company engineers resisted to the idea that civilian structure will be used as an emergency system, but the decision was made to do so.
The station (marked as power station 326, as this was its project number or over the equipment) was opened on October 1956, just before Kadesh Operation (Suez crisis), as a secret power station, in case the main power station of Tel-Aviv (Reading Power station couple of km west) will be hit during a war. It might have also been used for an atomic bunker for the Israel government, some say.
The construction started in 1954 and ended in 1956. It had 2 units, in total capacity of 40 MW of General Electric, and they worked till 1983. The units were German made, and were built for Poland. But were delivered to Israel because of the Embargo on Soviet countries.
It was closed because of a fire in the place. As the station located away from the shore, the water to cool the turbines was pumped from the original location of the Reading power station on the Mediterranean Sea and back into the Yarkon River.
The Yitzhak Rabin Center was built on top of the underground bunker power station, and the halls of the turbines still exist underneath the center. During the construction of the center, one wall of the bunker, one wall covered with stone of the power station, was revealed.
The construction was funded from the Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany, and therefore, AEG supplied the equipment to it.
Back then, the power station was called Al-Shaykh Muwannis power station, over the Palestinian village located on the hill before. But the Israeli Electric Company called it the Jora, slang for sewage,
Take Care
Gad
The stack pee above the trees in the middle of the pictures. Yitzhak Rabin Center building is in the right.
The Reading C Power station stack and the entrance to the center on left, with the guard booth
The stack from the other side
Yitzhak Rabin Center building. The sign on the stack guide you around, but says nothing about the stack it is post on.
The Great War Centenary – a sign about the Yarkon River crossing of the Commonwealth forces during WWI. The stack on the right
The electrical equipment in the underground power station on 2011 (Source: Yossi Aloni, makorrishon.co.il)
Water conduit used to drain water from the station to the Yarkon River, left out from the station. (Source: pikiwiki.org.il)
The construction of the station floor and walls (Source: IEC Facebook page)
The construction of the station roof, the stack can be seen in the background (Source: IEC Facebook page)
HaReading Gimel (Reading C in Hebrew) band – Playing Bach
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Here in the map, the location is marked up as Reading C