Friday March 29th, 2024
Download SceneNow app
Copied

22 Golden Photos of the Elevators of Downtown Cairo

Inspired by the anachronisms in the heart of the city that serve as a legacy to Downtown Cairo's magnificent history, we set out to capture some of the most beautiful pieces of architecture that still carry us to this day.

Staff Writer

If you were to walk into someone's apartment and find them using an old rotary phone, there are a few conclusions you could come to. Either this person is so hipster they'd rather spend an era just to dial a number; it's not REALLY a rotary (it's digitised but made to look like one) which would have us personally wondering if that puts them higher or lower on the hipster scale; or the logical conclusion, which is this person is absolutely off their nut for using a freaking landline in 2018 (seriously, who uses landlines anymore?). If said phone were simply there for aesthetic purposes it would make a little more sense, albeit still disgracing that person to the status of sad hipster.

But while using such an archaic device would be considered the behaviour of a madman nowadays - despite no ACTUAL harm coming of it - the same judgement isn't necessarily passed on something many of us use on a daily basis: the glorious elevators of Downtown Cairo. We can't be sure if it's the nostalgia, expense, or just pure laziness (we're not exactly the most proactive people in the world), but regardless, these hanging boxes have continued to serve us day in and day out for over a century if not two. And while we'll continuously hammer and chisel at one piece after the other within their mechanisms, we have yet to give them up, and their anachronistic quality has become one of the many unique identifiers to the heart of the city. Sure, Zamalek and Korba may have a few themselves, but Downtown Cairo is where it all started and frankly we're a little biased considering we spend 99% of our days there.

As such, we head out and captured some of our favourites in photographic format, and, well...

Check out these BEAUTS!
Photos by MO4 Network's #MO4Productions