Cairo’s Antique Elevators, Glorious and Glitchy, Are Scenes of Love and Fear

A Schindler elevator inside a Zamalek building in Cairo. (Sima Diab for The New York Times)
A Schindler elevator inside a Zamalek building in Cairo. (Sima Diab for The New York Times)
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Cairo’s Antique Elevators, Glorious and Glitchy, Are Scenes of Love and Fear

A Schindler elevator inside a Zamalek building in Cairo. (Sima Diab for The New York Times)
A Schindler elevator inside a Zamalek building in Cairo. (Sima Diab for The New York Times)

When you live in downtown Cairo, a neighborhood of European-meets-Egyptian facades in various states of faded grandeur, roundabouts whizzing with traffic and storefronts patchworked in riotously mismatched signage, it helps to cultivate a certain tolerance for features like relentless honking, rundown real estate and geriatric elevators.

Hager Mohamed was willing to brave the first two. The last, not so much.

Over a few months living downtown earlier this year, Hager, 28, surrendered to an elevator’s whims more often than necessary for most inhabitants of the 21st century. Partly it was her phobia of antique elevators, with their cabs of gleaming wood and glass suspended from very visible cables in rib cages of metal grillwork; and partly it was the specimen in her apartment building: It went up, but refused to go down without some control-box fiddling. The residents failed to organize maintenance until it stopped working entirely; even once fixed, it would descend only as far as the second floor.

But the building was conveniently located. And, well, she lived on the fifth floor.

“Now we live on the sixth floor in a building with no elevator,” said the sociology Ph.D. student. “It’s exhausting. I only realized the value of that elevator when it was gone.”

In central Cairo, few things are thrown away for good: Consider the ancient monuments and tombs built from the cannibalized parts of even more ancient precursors, or the doddering chairs, patched up with prosthetic limbs, where doormen sit on nearly every sidewalk.

Much the same goes for the city’s antiquated elevators, graceful fin-de-siècle and Art Deco pieces from the era when European architects molded Cairo’s streets, cosmopolitans filled its cafes and the city competed with London and Paris for wealth and glamour. Though some elevators have been replaced with modern machines, dozens, if not hundreds — no precise census exists — have been going up and down the same buildings for decades, in some cases more than a century.

“The fact that they’re still working until now,” said Mohamed Hassan, the head engineer at al-Ismaelia, a developer that rehabilitates aging buildings in downtown Cairo, “it’s a miracle.”

Some elevators’ survival owes to their beauty, landlords prizing them as lobby centerpieces. Other owners lack the means or the will to replace them, thanks in part to a so-called old rent system that governs about a quarter of all Cairo rentals, allowing tenants to pay next to nothing — an average of about $3 per month — for years on end.

The classic old elevator rises through an open shaft in a building’s center, an elaborately wrought metal cage separating it from well-worn marble stairs that wrap around it in a helix all the way up. Mirrors are common, petite leather built-in benches a pleasant surprise.

Most still bear the original brass plaque of their maker (usually out of business), along with safety instructions (often engraved in French) and a five-digit phone number to call in case of difficulties (long since disconnected).

Another feeling people tend to associate with such elevators is that of holding their breath every time one of them lurches upward — not with the isolation-tank noiselessness of a modern elevator but with little vibrations, along with minor bounces at departure and arrival that make it hard not to think about the mechanics of the whole operation.

Understandably, some Cairenes stick to the stairs. Maybe they have heard the horror stories. Still, the rate of disasters appears low.

Before the elevators will move, the rider must close the outer and then the inner doors with meticulous care, a safety feature with some inconvenient side effects.

If someone forgot to close the doors properly, the next rider has to take the stairs; if someone accidentally jostles the doors even a smidgen mid-ride, the elevator freezes.

The elevators have plenty of defenders, and not just for their looks. Their continued existence is a sign of high-quality manufacturing, they say. Get stuck, and you’ll have visibility, fresh air and the option of yelling for help or climbing out yourself.

“What I care about is being able to breathe,” said Hana Abdallah, 68, of the rare occasions when the power goes out mid-ride on one of the two Schindler originals at 1 Mazloum Street, a 1928 neo-Baroque Art Deco building. “What I care about is if the elevator breaks down, someone could bring me a chair — passing it into the cab through the open shaft — and I could just sit there the rest of the day.”

Like many Cairenes who could afford it, the wealthy residents’ heirs moved to the suburban communities that have drained many residents and their wealth from central Cairo. Hana’s husband retired 18 years ago because of ill health, and was not replaced. (These days, only a few buildings employ button-pushers.) Where pashas once ascended, she now uses one elevator shaft to dry out bunches of fresh garlic and onions, on account, she said, of the superior air flow.

One Mazloum Street is lucky to have both elevators still running. Many others sit frozen in disrepair, victims of landlord negligence and tenant squabbles over maintenance fees that sometimes turn so petty that residents who do pay install key-fob systems to condemn nonpayers to the stairs.

The government has begun sprucing up downtown facades, and Hassan’s company, specializes in restoring downtown buildings. But the elevators have outlived most of their manufacturers — Schindler still has a Cairo office, but stopped making parts for antique models years ago — and when serious damage occurs or residents tire of the hassle, some surrender to modern replacements.

New York Times



'Retro Park' Revives 80s and 90s Gaming Nostalgia at the Esports World Cup 2025

The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)
The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)
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'Retro Park' Revives 80s and 90s Gaming Nostalgia at the Esports World Cup 2025

The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)
The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)

The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades, with various devices and platforms shaping the features of successive generations, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.

In this context, the Retro Park pavilion drew large crowds at the Esports World Cup 2025, currently taking place at Boulevard Riyadh City. It offers an interactive journey through the world of classic video games, inspired by the 1980s and 1990s, continuing through the 2000s to the present day, starting with the 1972 "Odyssey," the world's first home gaming console, and culminating in today's virtual reality technologies.

In the 1970s, specifically in 1977, the Atari video game console gained prominence with its iconic game Pac-Man. In 1983, the Arab world saw the launch of its first Arabic-localized home gaming console, known as Sakhr, alongside the release of the Family game console, fondly remembered by a generation for the classic game Mario.

In the early 1990s, the Super Nintendo console emerged, accompanied by the release of Super Mario World in 1993. Arcade machines also became popular in gaming halls before many of their titles transitioned to home consoles.

A significant turning point occurred in 1996 with the launch of the PlayStation by Sony, which gained widespread popularity due to its hit game, Crash. The decade concluded with the release of the Sega Dreamcast video game console.

In the 2000s, home gaming advanced significantly with the release of the PlayStation 2 and 3, alongside popular games such as Ratchet & Clank and Black Ops. Moreover, Nintendo launched the highly successful Wii, while handheld consoles from Nintendo and PlayStation also gained traction. The emergence of YouTube in 2005 paved the way for "Let's Play" content and gaming-related media.

In the second decade of the millennium, video games continued to evolve with the rise of motion-based games such as Just Dance, while meme culture and reaction content spread among gamers and internet users, becoming part of their digital memory.

In 2020, virtual reality (VR) technology gained significant prominence through the use of VR headsets, elevating the gaming experience to unprecedented levels and becoming a key part of the industry's global future.

The Saudi scene is an active part of this evolution, with the Kingdom witnessing significant growth in the number of players and content creators, in line with the Saudi Vision 2030, which places strong emphasis on the gaming sector as part of digital transformation and youth empowerment.