JOHANNESBURG -- It's gritty, it's hip and it's downtown in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Johannesburg's Newtown cultural precinct is at the heart of life in this city, and a visit reveals just why this is one of Africa's great metropolitan centers.

Newtown is home to a theater famed for its role in the fight against apartheid, one of the continent's premier jazz clubs, and a restaurant offering up a taste of South Africa in all its flavors.

Its roads are named after some of the country's best writers, painters and voices such as the late African songbird Miriam Makeba, whose face adorns the walls in colorful murals.

There are galleries nestled beside derelict red brick warehouses, a museum in an old electric workshop and an open square with cafes. Framing it all is a dramatic view of Johannesburg's skyscrapers and the freeway that rings the city.

Johannesburg is the commercial capital of the country -- and an economic hub of the continent. It is a world-class city that will host the opening and closing matches of 2010 football World Cup.

But because of its reputation for violent crime, few visitors make it beyond the swanky hotels, high walls and sprawling malls of the north.

Only a handful of tourists stay more than a couple of days in Johannesburg, preferring instead to head for the Cape or the many nearby game parks.

For those staying longer, a trip downtown presents a different perspective on Johannesburg, and Newtown is a safe starting point.

The precinct was home to workers of all races who settled on the fringes of the mining town that sprang up soon after gold was discovered in the area in 1886.

These slums were torched by the fire brigade to prevent the spread of bubonic plague in 1904. On the razed land, Newtown was built and with its fresh produce market, power station and railway yard, it drove the development of the city.

By the 1970s, actors, artists and musicians moved into the industrial buildings as they became defunct and the cultural precinct began to take shape.

During the 1980s and the early 1990s, it was Johannesburg's most fashionable spot where black and white trendsetters broke down racial barriers over coffee and beers.

The last decade and a half has seen much of downtown Johannesburg become rundown and derelict. But efforts by local authorities to stop the decay are starting to show results.

A RENAISSANCE

More visitors are crossing the elegant white Nelson Mandela Bridge into the city. New bars are attracting nightlife, warehouses are being converted into loft apartments and there is a sense of renewal about Newtown.

Presiding over the culture precinct is the regal Market Theatre. Built in the city's original fruit and vegetable market, it features graceful Edwardian girders and giant curved windows.

The theater was established in 1976 as opposition to apartheid mounted. It flouted laws on racial segregation, allowing black and white actors to perform together in front of a mixed audience.

The theater continues to be at the frontline of productions that touch on the new realities of life in South Africa. Veteran thespian John Kani's Nothing But The Truth, a moving play about a middle-aged man who has to come to terms with freedom after a lifetime of subservience, has just finished a second run. Works by contemporary directors such as Mike van Graan and Lara Foot Newton are also regularly shown.

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