This well-known image shows the “Bulaq Bridge” (Cairenes called it Kubri Abu al-‘Ala; before 1952 it was officially called “Fuad I Bridge”), which stood approximately where 26 July Bridge is today. Many remember this bridge very well. After its opening in 1912 the Bulaq Bridge became an integral part of city life, and tram n. 3 ran through it. Since its demolition in 1998 some bridge parts have remained in the Bulaq side of the Nile until today.
This picture gives us an occasion to dwell a bit in the business and industrial history of Cairo. The bridges of Cairo have been not only essential networks for the circulation of traffic and strolling along the river. They were industrial achievements through significant financial investment and they also made investment possible. This particular bridge, along with three others, was fundamental in the urban development of Zamalek and Imbaba.
“Le compagnie de Fives-Lille pour constructions mécaniques et entreprises” was one of the leading French industrial enterprises specialized in bridges, trainlines, and large metalwork in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (after many fusions, it is still an existing company). Khedive Ismail commissioned this company to build the Qasr al-Nil Bridge (construction 1869-1872) and the later British administrators in occupied Egypt commissioned the same company to build the Bulaq Bridge in 1907 (and all other bridges in the 1900s). It was a double leafed “bascule bridge,” a moveable bridge which allowed water traffic and used the then-latest technology (the Scherzer-method, patented in 1893).
The new bridges made possible the large-scale urbanization of Zamalek and Imbaba. The Tramway Company financed partly the construction of the bridge, the tram which ran through it, and this company’s power plant operated the bridge’s hydraulics. There are suggestions that the company’s owner had several plots in Zamalek and started to commission villas. Thus, the electric bridge may have been a major tool in capitalist urbanization and in general enabled land speculation in the 1910s.
(Literature: Zaki, Mawsu’ Madinat al-Qahira, 235; Abu-Lughod, Cairo: 1001 Years, 140-141; Al-Ahram, 2001 interview with Dr. Fathi Salih; Samir Rafaat, “A Bridge Misunderstood and other Cairo crossings,” originally in Egyptian Mail, Saturday, April 29, 1995; archive of Fives-Lille in Archives nationales du monde du travail; a video from 2013 about how people remember the bridge; more pictures here and here) (A.M.)
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