-Aziz
Street has become a cinema, while its shell is now used as storage for many of the shops around.
Dubai of the 1920s: during the second half of the 19th century, Mohammed Ali’s grandson Ismail the Magnificent turned Azbakeya into Egypt’s modern nightlife and entertainment district, opening Egypt’s first opera house there in 1869, as well as other theatres and a circus. By the 1920s, Cairo was a boom town, full of new investment and new development – one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world
If you walk along Emad
al
-Din
Street, which in the 1920s was the main centre of action, you will still find several old theatres and cinemas from different time periods. One of them is the Naguib al-Rihani Theatre, formerly the Ramses Theatre, where Youssef Wahbi and his troupe used to play in the 20s and 30s. Many of these places are horribly run down. But in 2018, Cairo’s best modern art house cinema – Zawya – did relocate to one of the old cinemas on Emad Al-D