Sunday, March 27, 2011

Dubai 1977

I've been fossicking around at the bottom of boxes and the back of drawers looking for more photos that I took in Dubai when I arrived the first time in 1977.

I found some 35mm slides, processed by a lab I'd completely forgotten about, United Colour Film Co of Ajman.

My first apartment was in a new building in Deira, just behind what is now Al Ghurair City (which hadn't been started when I moved here). There's a photo of it on an earlier 'old Dubai' post, here.

Anyway, in the heart of Deira I took this shot from my sixth-floor apartment:

Plenty of people still kept their livestock like this, a few hundred metres from the Inter.Continental hotel on the Creek.

Across in Bur Dubai, there wasn't a lot of development around Dubai Museum either:


 We had some interesting retail options in those days ( I love the brand name on the box by the way, click on the pic to enlarge it):




 And last but not least, my very favourite of all my old Dubai photographs:


Yes, it's the Imperil Restaurant.

7 comments:

Grumpy Goat said...

The Imperil, eh? I am eerily reminded of the Wanton Chinese restaurant, an existing establishment in Karama.

Mich said...

Ohhhh! That's the Dubai I would have liked to have lived in. I arrived 30 years too late! :-)

Shalini said...

Lol, what fun to see what it originally was!

BTW, your "old dubai" label is not blocked anymore by Du now.

Le conteur said...

Love the post. My dad used to work for United Color Film in Ajman from 1970 till about 1982 when he quit and decided to go solo. It amuses me to think that you may have actually met him, somehow! :)

And Imperil restaurant.. ha!

Out and About in Dubai said...

Love the flash-back photos Seabee!

Christian said...

I arrived in Dubai (Deira side) in 1977. We were the only complete French family living there at that time. The immense beaches were for us alone !
It was already a busy city. We inaugurated the two first escalators (the first one at al Fajer Department store of Sheih Hasher Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum and the second one at the Sheraton on the creek).
I have kept thousands of movies and pictures.
Christian

greg said...

i used to live in jumeria (check spelling) as a kid, my father was one of the civil engineers on the dry dock and port rashid extension, i remember these days well, mornings at the american school in dajeria, afternoons by the pool at the costain club, or sailing with the dubai yacht club (whites only in those days), getting beer from the bonded stores, free fantas when we went to see the bank manager, great days, and i can still close my eyes 40 years later and smell the rottensweet stench of the beach, and the coffee shops and guys in the souk carrying sheets of gold over their shoulders, we used to laugh and say we should follow them around with scissors.....