Lasker Street

IM Yochanan Afek (who is also an IM for Chess Compositions as well as IA for both over-the- board and composition tournaments) has sent me this photograph of a building in Emmanuel Lasker street, in southern Tel Aviv. None of the passersby (or residents) Afek had asked knew who Lasker was, let alone why anyone would name a street after him.

The street is in a rather shabby and run-down area, as the photograph shows. Poor Lasker: not only is the street named after him on skid row, but for decades Tel Aviv's Lasker chess club was housed in a similarly shabby location: it was on the second floor... above the local brothel.