According to the description under the image above, this was the first concrete and bricks building in Kuwait and it was built by Alkurafi & Almatrook opposite the customs in Al Seif Street. I wonder if it’s still standing today. [Link]
Update: Mithos from the blog Habatq8 sent me a scan from what looks like an old Kuwait almanac. On the page there is a list of “Prominent Merchants” (see above) and topping that list is Alkurafi & Almatrook who were listed as “Grocer and a dealer in piece goods”. Here is a link to the full scan [Image]
My brother has a thing for taking pictures of old and broken down buildings and I’ve posted the last two of his photo-sets on the blog before (here and here). He recently went and shot another building and uploaded a new photo-set on his flickr account. One picture grabbed my attention since it had an old poster advertising a wrestling event. I told him to send me a close up of that poster which he did and which you can see above and below. The poster was on a building that’s soon to be demolished on Fahad Al Salem street.
I don’t know how old the poster is since there isn’t any date on it, my brother thinks it’s the 80s but my rough guess based on a bit of online research would put this sometime in the early 60s. I think it’s very cool and someone needs to preserve stuff like this. Maybe the part of the wall that has these posters can be broken off or maybe just these pictures are enough?
Here is the link to the full set of pictures my brother took [Link]
Update: A reader was able to calculate what year the poster is from based on the day, date and my rough estimation. The best guess to when this poster dates back to is now 1965.
I thought Brett Jordan had finished scanning and uploading pictures his parents took when they were in Kuwait back in the 60s but I just noticed that he is still adding new pictures to his Flickr account. Check them out [Here]
From the cover of the tape, this film “explores the rapid social evolution and economic transformation of Kuwait from a small pearling and trading community in the 1940s, to a country now occupying a pivotal position in world affairs.”
Kuwait a Dream Suspended is a rare documentary film about Kuwait in the 80s. I haven’t had the chance to watch it all yet but from what I saw it looks interesting. [YouTube]
Brett Jordan is still scanning and uploading pictures of Kuwait from the early 60s. So far he has uploaded over 100 pictures and he’s still uploading. What I like about his collection of photos other than the fact they’re being scanned in super high resolution revealing some amazing details but also the fact some of them show Kuwait in a way I hadn’t seen it before.
He’s got some really great stuff there, the three pictures here are just some of the new one’s he’s uploaded. Here is the link to his collection [Link]
A few days back I posted two pictures that were taken by this guys parents back in the 1960′s when they were in Kuwait. Well the guy (Brett Jordan) has uploaded more pictures including the one I’ve posted above which is of the Sheraton roundabout. I can’t believe it was that beautiful. I can see Fahad Al Salem street in the background and it looks so green with all the trees! The whole street looks very spacious and clean, I wish it still looked like that today. Check out the rest of the pictures by visiting his flickr page [Here]
Found these two picture on Flickr which were taken in Kuwait back in the early 60′s. They’re both by the same person (Brett Jordan) who I guess was working in Kuwait back then. The pictures were taken by the parents of Brett Jordan who digitized the shots and uploaded them to his Flickr account. I liked the car shot above because of the colors while the one below I liked because Kuwait looked so quiet and calm compared to today. Check out the originals [Here] and [Here]
This is definitely the coolest thing Kuwait Times have ever done. Today’s issue of their free Friday Times newspaper was wrapped with a copy of their first issue ever dating back to September 24, 1961. Their first issue was only 4 pages but there are enough gems in there to make it worth picking up. Here are the coolest things I found in the paper:
- An ad announcing a new 1962 model of an RCA TV arriving at Morad Yousuf Behbehani
- An ad from the then not yet opened Gulf Bank (pictured below)
- Kuwait Airport arrival and departure timings. The only destinations were Bahrain, Damascus, Beirut, Abadan, Doha and Cairo. No European or any other countries
- A classified ad for a car “Immediately available Austin 55 – 1969, roughly used by it’s careless owner, with one head lamp broken (by courtsey of a fellow motorist) dented all over it’s sleek frame, springs making noise only when driving on bad roads (bad roads non-existent at Kuwait), if you are still interested, send offers to K.T. Box, No. 524 Kuwait.” What I found funny is the honesty and the fact you need to send him a letter if you’re interested. The postal service must have been very reliable back then
- Kuwait Cinemas schedule, Psycho was playing at Al Andalus, Al-Hamra was closed due to repair, Al-Firdous was playing The Golden Horde, the open air cinema in Hawalli was playing Bayabit Al Ward and finally the open air cinema at Fahaheel was playing Tomb of Love.
I highly recommend you pass by a bakala or newspaper stand and pick up today’s free issue of the Friday Times. And if anyone from Kuwait Times is reading this, if you still have all your old issues, please convert them to PDF and upload them online!
The Huntley Film Archives emailed me to tell me they’ve uploaded another video of Kuwait this time it’s a compilation of old commercials. The first commercial in the reel is actually of Al Muthana complex which I found really funny due to all the sci-fi sounds and digital effects. [YouTube]
The previous Kuwait video they had digitized and uploaded onto YouTube was Close Up on Kuwait – 1962.
A reader just pointed me towards this old Kuwaiti movie from the 70′s called the “The wolves don’t eat meat”. Supposedly the movie is banned but I have no idea why. It looks like one weird and trippy movie! Where can I get it from? Does anyone know if it is banned and if yes why? [YouTube]
I contacted Chris, the guy who uploaded the original video of Kuwait 1984 – 1987 that included the old Salmiya and asked him if he could upload some more videos if he had any. He told me he would try his best and since then has uploaded 3 more videos. Sadly a lot of his videos were not readable but he’s sharing whatever he found working. I already posted the video of the car exhibition from the mid 80s the other day and the video above and below are two more new ones.
The video above features the Gulf Road (back when you could drive into the Green Island?), some of the old Salmiya, other residential areas and Kuwait City (including Muthana Complex during its prime). The video below features some National Day celebrations.
Mark and Nat, a married couple who are living in Kuwait. Mark is a creative director at an ad agency while Nat runs her own design studio called Push+Pull.
