In 1982, the Colosseum nightclub, the largest club in Israel opened there, and operated until the late 1990s. However, the square continued to decline. During the Gulf War in 1991, Mayor Shlomo Lahat quipped that he hoped a Scud missile would destroy it.[4] Although the square had originally been named Namir Square, named after Mordechai Namir, Namir's widow, Ora Namir, requested that her late husband's name be withdrawn from the square and for him to be honored some other way after the square's decline.