The image was taken before this elegant plaza, and most of Beirut, was pounded into rubble during Lebanon's savage 1975-91 civil war. Today, Beirutis are seeing that dream realized as their city makes a mega-million dollar comeback. The downtown core is the world's largest urban development project, 445-acres swarming with bulldozers and cement mixers. Construction cranes rise more numerous than trees. Tractors drone at 2 a.m.
Workers labor three shifts a day to restore telephone, electrical, and water services.
Four years ago, as the war ended, it was difficult to find an unscathed building in this city of 1.5 million people. Today, few of those monuments to war's desolation remain. Reconditioned luxury cars from Germany cruise past the site where a savage bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine compound in 1983 left Americans stunned by the furies of the Middle East. Trendy teenagers hang out at KFC and Pizza Hut. Designer boutiques selling European creations line the streets of Hamra, the city's glitziest shopping zone.