"A Pub Crawl in Ottoman Cairo"

In an attempt to resume my past efforts to highlight the occasionally offbeat, here's a link to "A Pub Crawl in Ottoman Cairo," which uses a 1904 ultra-detailed insurance map of Cairo to highlight the numerous drinking establishments in and around the Ezbekiyya Gardens.

 While the choice of "Ottoman Cairo" is arguable (though technically correct) since 1904 was the later years of Lord Cromer's ascendancy and Ottoman suzerainty was merely theoretical, I won't quibble. The formal Ezbekiyya gardens had emerged in the 19th century around an earlier lake, and had become a center for elite European hotels (including the original Shepheard's and the Grand Continental) and polite society. (Ironically, Cairo's most notorious red light district lay just a few blocks to the north, where the modern European quarters blended with and abutted the more "traditional" quarters.)

As the detailed map, which can be found online via the Harvard library, shows, there was no shortage of places to drink. (At least a small number of these survived into the 1970s, when highway flyovers and a tunnel pretty thoroughly transformed the neighborhood.)

If you like Cairo, or old maps, or bars,or if, like me, all three, take a look.