Category: 50s to 90s

Still alive… just not kicking.
Tapes are for 500fils while CDs are for KD1.

I was reading on Me Blogging about her visit to the Swatch exhibition in Geneva where they had on display all the Swatch watches ever produced from 1983 up till today. That made me want to dig out my first Swatch watch which is the one above. I purchased it back in the 80’s from Fay in Salmiya. You could try finding your first Swatch by clicking [Here]

Cy from the blog Cyrographics uploaded pictures of Al Hamra Cinema before it got demolished. He used to work for a company that surveyed the site and he found these photos while searching through some old files. This is what he had to say about the photos:

Disclaimer Notice: I am not the owner of these photos, they are just uploaded for the sole purpose of sharing a rare glimpse of Kuwait history for the younger generations of citizens and expats alike. All credits are due to LAS Architectural and Consultancy Office

I was browsing through my files from my previous office when I chanced upon these photos of the Al Hamra Cinema as it was before. Our office (LAS) used to do a lot of Master Planning studies and proposals for the development of Kuwait City and this area, Al Maqwa Al Shargi, where the cinema used to stand, was part of one of our studies. I don’t know much about the history of this cinema, or even Kuwait in general, but I know this cinema was and will always be a part of each and every Kuwaiti families lives.

We took these photos during our survey of the area in 2003.
The other photos in the set were taken in the latter part of 2004, I guess for sentimental reasons, when the building was demolished to give way to the construction of the Al Hamra Tower.

These files had been stored in our hard disks since then, almost forgotten and in danger of being corrupted, deleted and worst, being lost forever.

You can check his blog post [Here]
You can check out all the pictures [Here]

Also, here is my post on Al Hamra Tower that was built in place of Al Hamra Cinema [Link]

Phaidon Press (the best publisher in the world, period) uploaded a video to YouTube where the legendary photo-journalist and photographer Steve McCurry shares the amazing story behind the famous picture of the camels in front of the burning oil wells. [YouTube]

Found this link to a forum with pictures of old Kuwaiti architecture via The Buz Fairy. There are a lot of shots I had seen before but there are also some which I hadn’t. I really love the building above, looked modern today and that picture was taken back in 1962. [Link]

There is an interesting article on 5 things that Donald Duck invented and Kuwait was mentioned in one of the stories:

In 1964, a freighter capsized off the coast of Kuwait. This caused a bit of a problem, as the ship’s hold had been filled with 5,000 sheep, who were now drowned and decomposing in close proximity to Kuwait’s drinking water. And really, no one wants to drink dead sheep water (well, except maybe the Scots). So Danish inventor Karl Kroyer designed a ship-raising technique that involved filling the vessel with small, buoyant balls injected through a tube. The combined buoyancy of which would float the ship to the surface. It took 27 million balls, but it worked. The Al Kuwait rose from the depths, with the furious ghosts of 5,000 dead sheep and all.

So, what does this have to do with Donald Duck? Well, Kroyer wanted to patent his idea and so he applied for it at a Dutch office but they stopped him accusing him of stealing his idea from Donald Duck. Turns out in one of the Donald Duck stories they lifted a sunken ship by pumping millions of ping pong balls into it, an idea similar to Kroyer’s. Anyway you can read the full article and check out the original comic by following this [Link]

I thought is was interesting that the first ship ever raised from the sea bed was here in the coastal waters of Kuwait.

Thanks lloyd_911

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]

Lots of good footage in the video. [YouTube]

via 965malls

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]

Thanks om3ali

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!

Thanks Q