Tamera Sunny, a 25-year-old TikTok creator from Durban, and her friend Payton Singarum, recently traveled to Johannesburg for Comic Con. The pair, along with three other friends, had booked a top-floor Airbnb apartment at Ponte Tower without researching the building's history or the reputation of the surrounding Hillbrow area. According to Sunny, the Airbnb listing featured a luxury apartment with floor-to-ceiling views and hundreds of five-star reviews from international guests, but there was no mention of the building's troubled past.
Sunny and Singarum only discovered the area's notorious reputation after making the booking. The pair had a non-refundable booking, so they decided to make the most of their experience. They spent their first day at Gold Reef City and two days at Comic Con before settling into the Ponte apartment. Sunny said she knew almost nothing about Ponte Tower or Hillbrow before the trip, but after an online search, she learned about Ponte's history, including its origins as a luxury residential tower during apartheid and its later decline and association with crime and criminal activity.
Despite initial fears, Sunny said her experience inside Ponte was different from what she had expected. The apartment itself was spotless, modern, and beautiful, and the surrounding streets were clean. The security at the building's entrance was also impressive, with facial recognition, a reception, and restricted access. Sunny and Singarum took precautions throughout their five nights in Ponte, imposing a strict evening curfew and barricading their door at night.
Sunny said she and Singarum spent their evenings watching K-dramas, having dance parties, and playing murder-mystery games. The view from their 52nd-floor apartment was breathtaking, with the entire city of Johannesburg glittering below them. Sunny described the experience as "beautiful and eerie at the same time," saying they felt like they were floating above the city in a tower that everyone says they should not be in.
One of Sunny's biggest surprises was seeing how the building had changed over the decades. She met a resident who was unaware of much of Ponte's history and was simply living her life. Sunny said this resilience surprised her and made her realize that people inside the building were just trying to live, not dwell on the past. The experience also changed how Sunny viewed the people living in Hillbrow, saying they were simply "normal people" working, studying, and raising children.
The experience eventually became content for Sunny's TikTok audience, where viewers questioned why she would deliberately choose to spend the night in a building with such a reputation. However, Sunny said the stay was never planned as a stunt, and she was simply making the most of a non-refundable booking. Her family was particularly concerned after discovering where she was staying, with her dad even considering taking leave from work to come stay with her as security.
The Ponte City building, a 173-meter concrete cylinder, dominates the Johannesburg skyline. Sunny said the drive into Hillbrow was "weirdly clean," before Ponte Tower appeared above the skyline. Despite initial fears, Sunny said she did not feel that someone was going to attack her while inside Ponte, and she was surprised by the sense of normalcy and community among the building's residents.
Key points
- Two friends from Durban spent five nights in Johannesburg's notorious Ponte City after booking a non-refundable Airbnb.
- The pair was initially unaware of the building's troubled history but took precautions and had a different experience than expected.
- The experience changed Sunny's views on the people living in Hillbrow and the building's history.
