posted
If you could have any street in Cairo named after you, which street would it be and why?
I would have Gomhoria street... because it's busy, crowded and has lots of useful things
Giza is now playing host to new 'fingerpost type' bilingual streets signs. They are decent looking, legible and uniform. Kudos to the governor for his efforts! More importantly someone consulted a spellchecker so that we won't be taken for a semi-literate nation. Which now brings me back to another question: the number of times some of these streets changed street signs.
For example, let's take the street running parallel to the river between Zamalek and Giza bridges. In the days when it was more of a sleepy alley than a lover's lane it was known as Sharia El Bahr El Aazam (Great Sea). It was not a through-road ending somewhere near where University Bridge would be built in 1960.
Some time after 1936 the street was widened and renamed King Farouk Avenue. Naturally this meant that shortly after 1952 it was renamed Gamal Abdel Nasser, but only for a decade. The re-introduction of Sharia El Nil spared Anwar al-Sadat an everyday reminder of his nemesis.
Ditto for the next street to the west. It too had its share of name changes starting off as Khedive Abbas Avenue in honor of a modern-day hereditary rulers and ending with Avenue Charles de Gaule on the occasion of President Chirac's state visit to Egypt.
Tritto the nigh bridge which changed its appellation several times. From Kobri Bahr al-Aazam, to Pont des Anglais, to Evacuation Bridge! Hmmm, let's not omit two of its popular nicknames: "Kobri Badia" after a notorious spy-belly-dancer that owned a casino across from the bridge, and much later "Kobri Sheraton" because of the nearby hotel by the same name.
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