Sublets in Old North, Tel Aviv

On the municipality's map it is District 3 (Rova 3): from the Yarkon River in the north to the line of Bograshov Street, Ben Zion Boulevard and Marmorek Street in the south, and from Ibn Gabirol Street in the east to the sea. Dizengoff and Ben Yehuda run through it lengthwise, while Nordau, Jabotinsky, Arlozorov, Ben Gurion Boulevard and Frishman cross it from the city to the beach.

The name is misleading. When the area went up in the 1930s and 1940s, it was simply called the north of the city. “Old” was added to set it apart from the New North, built after 1948 east of Ibn Gabirol, and to this day many people mistakenly call the neighbourhoods across that street “Old North” too.

Geddes, a Scottish biologist and town planner, drew up Tel Aviv's first master plan in 1925. The cross streets run perpendicular to the sea so the breeze can reach deep into the city, while the long north–south streets were meant for shops. Building started, of all places, by the beach, around Dizengoff and Ben Yehuda, because that land was sand rather than orchards.

The basic unit is the “Geddes block”: a square of about 200 by 200 metres between four main streets. The side streets inside it are deliberately broken off at T-junctions to keep the interior quiet, which is where the narrow one-way streets every driver in the city knows come from. At the heart of the block the plan put a public garden, or a public building such as a school, a kindergarten or a health clinic.

The typical plot in the plan was about half a dunam (500 m²), with the building in the middle and a garden around it. That produced houses of up to four storeys, usually two apartments per floor, and most buildings here keep that character today. The immigration waves of the 1930s forced the city engineer, Yaakov Ben-Sira, to allow taller, denser building. South of Ben Gurion Boulevard, this urban fabric is recognised as part of the White City, a World Heritage Site.

What about a safe room (mamad)? Protected spaces only became mandatory in new construction after the Gulf War, decades after most of these houses were built. In an old building without a shelter, the most protected spot may be the internal stairwell. Ask which floor the apartment is on, too: with two suitcases, a fourth floor without a lift is no small detail.

The Purple Line will cross the district along Arlozorov and turn south onto Ben Yehuda. According to NTA, four of its stations will be in the district or on its edges: Ibn Gabirol Arlozorov, Dizengoff, Gordon and Bograshov. Test runs are planned for March 2028, with passenger service the same year. Work on the line in Ben Yehuda has been going on since 2021, so before you choose an apartment there, ask what you can hear through the window.

The line will start at Tel Aviv Merkaz station, next to the Savidor terminal, where it will connect with Israel Railways and the Red Line, running since August 2023. Under Ibn Gabirol the Green Line is being built, with underground stations at Arlozorov and Rabin Square, and it is expected to run in full during 2030. Until 2028, it's buses and bikes.

This is an area for people staying a while who want a routine: families looking for a garden and a school inside the block, and anyone dreaming of the sea at the end of the street. Within the district are Tel Aviv Port, Independence Park (Gan HaAtzmaut), which Geddes left open, the Basel compound, Dizengoff Square from 1934 and Rabin Square.

Drivers feel the first downside. A resident zone parking permit, which lets you park free in blue-and-white bays, goes only to people whose address in the city is registered with the Interior Ministry and who have the arnona (municipal tax) in their name, and in a sublet that isn't a given. Ask whether there's parking in the yard: over the years, some of the gardens between buildings were turned into parking. Meanwhile, along the light rail routes, the works aren't finished.

Renters pay no fees on Home Sublet, and the host receives the rent and deposit in person, at the key handover. Just make sure first that the landlord has agreed to the sublet.