Tale of a city

By Fayza Hassan
Commemorating the events of 1952 seems to be on everyone's mind this year, not only because we are remembering 50 years of their passing, but because it feeds into an acute nostalgia for the good old days, obviously born of impotent despair at the present state of affairs. Attending a conference at the Egyptian Historical Society on the first momentous event of that year, the burning of Cairo on Black Saturday (26 January), it was obvious that the speakers and the public had come not so much to unravel the unsolved mystery of who had instigated the arson as to admire photographs of Cairo as it used to be and reminisce fondly about the lost beauty of the capital conceived and redesigned by Khedive Ismail.
Many forgot that the exodus from the city centre had begun well before the arsonists had put paid to it. Both my parents, for instance, had lived around Soliman Pasha Square during the 1930s, but moved away to the new, more verdant suburbs as soon as they married. So had most of their friends and acquaintances. At the time of the fire, the city centre's transformation was well underway: the former most sought-after residential area had become an elegant business district. Fifty years on, it is the grimy, faint memory of a glorious past, disfigured by cheap professional name plaques and advertising billboards. The new occupiers seemed intent on quickly running it into the ground.
Some years ago, a few courageous intellectuals, inspired by academic descriptions of the past, floated the project of rehabilitating Khedive Ismail's brainchild. For a time, I joined the dreamers and searched for a turn-of-the-century building that would harbour an apartment begging to be restored. It was romantic, I thought, to come full circle and end up where my parents had started. I visited a number of flats. The dilapidated building entrances, pitch-dark stairways and decaying lifts were enough to extinguish the strongest enthusiasm even before I took a look at the service stairs, where a century of grunge stuck to the steps and the walls. And where could I fit a second bathroom? I wondered. It was suggested that with extensive (and expensive) transformations, I could have what I wanted. It merely required lots of money: apart from the essential and radical plumbing job, I would have to rewire the place completely, fix the sagging floors, repair the windows and probably the elevator as well... How is the water pressure? I worried. Fine -- early in the morning and late at night, when the various clinics, offices and workshops have closed and the building is deserted.
It was a commendable dream, of course, but I had to keep in mind that a place very much reflects its inhabitants' standards. Downtown Cairo was elegant because its dwellers were part of an aristocracy that has now disappeared. There were servants to clean the large rooms, shine the parquet floors and busy themselves in the dark, unwieldy kitchens. Today's elite has other needs: namely, more than one bathroom with good water pressure, a manageable kitchen free of insects and rodents, and a powerful electrical system that can accommodate the numerous appliances without which life is not worth living. For these advantages, I realised that I was happy to forsake the high ceilings and the rococo façades. The call of history was not strong enough for me to put up with all the inconveniences.
But if enlightened pioneers cannot muster the courage to buy and rehabilitate the old apartments, what will happen to downtown Cairo? Should we leave it to the street vendors, the doctors and lawyers, tailors and dressmakers, shop attendants and secretaries? Professional people seem to have no desire to repair or maintain their premises. "Do you think my patients care?" asked a doctor I know. "They come to see me, not to enjoy the décor!" How true. His waiting room is so full that his patients sit on the dirty stairs waiting for him until the wee hours of the morning. Imagine having him as a next-door neighbour...
It became abundantly clear that downtown Cairo is far beyond a private salvage operation. The city centre and its architectural treasures have been abandoned to office blocks and mall builders, parking lots and petrol station developers. These amenities stand now in the place of gracious palaces, leafy gardens and splendid villas: a car park has replaced the Huda Sha'rawi villa, the Bustan shopping mall and multi-storey garage graces the plot on which King Fouad's opulent residence once stood, the Opera House has been replaced by the Ataba car park and a busy petrol station has erased the memory of the old Shepheard's hotel.
What is there left to save? The restaurants, the coffee shops, the boutiques? A quick stroll down any major street is proof enough that when it lost its original name it lost any trace of glamour. Of course, one can argue that most of the suburbs have not fared any better, but one has to remember that they simply reflect the taste of the times. Once the Muski and Muizz Li Din Illah Street have been "renovated" and lost all their character in the process, there will remain nothing of the Cairo my generation has known. But then again, those who believed that it was one of the most beautiful capitals of the world are becoming obsolete too, and their children are building and buying into new McDonald's cities in the desert. So who needs to preserve the past?
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