There was a time when people used to be able to sleep outside in Karachi and everywhere was safe, here are some pictures of that time.





MA Jinnah Road



looks more modern then than it does now, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia was at same level as Pakistan in 1950s and through to 1960s now look at them.

Excellent pictures, keep on coming. Love to see more pictures of Karachi.
Thanks.

nice pics man, these kinda pics are invaluable.

I heard Karachi in the 1960s had cafes where bands would gather and sing...

Mark...just out of curiosity i searched for "Karachi in sixties"...and you are correct on bands and gigs...see the article below...intresting indeed !!!




The 1960s have been called "The Soaring Sixties" - and that, in fact, is what they were in many respects, not just in places like "Swinging London" with its revolution in music, movies, fashion and the like, but also in places like "Swinging Karachi" and even (would you believe it!) "Swinging Lahore".

After all the traumatic events of the 1980s, '90s and the new millennium, "Swinging Karachi" may sound like a misnomer today to people not old enough to remember what the city was like back in the '60s. But members of my generation recall that Karachi with great fondness.

For one thing, the Karachi of those days was a place where ethnic violence, bomb blasts, kidnappings and acts of terrorism were unknown. The per capita incidence of crime was far, far lower back then than it is today. Indeed, the Karachi of the '60s was one of the safest cities in the world. You could go anywhere at any hour of the day or night without any concern for your safety. There was so little crime in Karachi in those days that even burglaries were front-page news. Muggings were unknown, murders few and far between. My memory is pretty good, but I can't recall anybody back then ever telling me that their car had been stolen. Nowadays, of course, car thefts are a dime a dozen.


The city was much smaller then, not just in terms of its population but also in terms of its area. There was no Gulshan-e-Iqbal, no Defence, no Seaview. There was also much less traffic in those days, and you could cross the whole city - from, say, Keamari to Pir Ilahi Bakhsh Colony, or from the Nursery to the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate - in half an hour by car.

Today's Karachi is a vast sprawl that seems not like one city but many different cities, which increasingly, have less and less to do with each other. The North Nazimabad crowd has its own outlook on life, the Defence crowd its own, with the Bahadurabad crowd sandwiched somewhere between the two. PECHS's residential neighbourhoods have become a neglected backwater, while the chaotic traffic conditions in Tariq Road's commercial area grow worse by the day. Back in the '60s, however, Karachi was still a city with a well-defined central downtown area. Saddar was where people went to shop, to watch movies, to stroll along the pavement of an evening, to eat out at a Chinese restaurant, to buy a loaf of Romeo Pereira's famous black bread.

If you wanted to buy flowers for a girl, you bought them from the flower-seller in the verandah of the Bliss & Co. building on Elphinstone Street. If you wanted to buy a tin of Erinmore pipe tobacco, you bought it from Rodriguez's shop on Elphi. Rodriguez migrated to Canada years ago, along with thousands of other members of Karachi's Goanese community, and his shop is no more.

Capitol Cinema, Paradise Cinema, Rex Cinema, Palace Cinema, Rio Cinema, Godeon Cinema, Bambino Cinema and Lyric Cinema were all located in and around Saddar. Until the early 1960s, they showed the latest Hollywood blockbusters and British movies - not the badly-dubbed spaghetti westerns and Hong Kong martial arts rubbish of later years. Rex was the first Karachi cinema equipped with cinemascope. Bambino was the first to be equipped with a 70 mm screen and projection equipment. Its first 70 mm offering was David Lean's stunning 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia starring newcomer Peter O'Toole in the title role of T. E. Lawrence, the complex English leader of the Arab revolt against Turkey in World War I.

Many people in this part of the world thought Lawrence was a spy, and he remains a controversial figure even 70 years after his death in England in a motorcycle accident in 1935. In the late 1920s, Lawrence enlisted in the Royal Air Force under the assumed name of Shaw and was stationed for a while at the Malir air base in Karachi.

Of all the Saddar cinema houses, only Bambino and Lyric still survive; the rest were all torn down years ago to make way for concrete carbuncles or converted to other uses. Going to the movies is no longer something the whole family does. It's all-male audiences now, with catcalls and loutish behaviour being the norm.

1960s' Karachi had a thriving nightlife. The city had many nightclubs, all of which regularly put on shows - with acts like Chelo Alonso "The Cuban Bombshell" and Princess Amina "The Belly-Dancing Sensation" packing in the crowds.

In 1962, the KLM Midway House at Karachi airport opened for business and became an immediate hit with the late-night crowd. Everything it served was imported, right down to the peanuts, beer, and chicken with peaches. People would drive to Midway House for a meal after a late-night movie, and one often ran into friends and acquaintances there. The best steaks in town, however, were to be found at the Hostelerie de France, another hotel-cum-eatery near the airport.

In the early 1960s, Trini Lopez's up-tempo pop songs began to sweep America, with mega hits like 'La Bamba', 'Lemon Tree', 'If I Had A Hammer' and 'This Land Is My Land'. Lopez spawned a host of imitators in America and Europe. One of the best of the European imitators was a Dutch group called Johnny Lion and the Jumping Jewels. Johnny Lion sounded more like Trini Lopez than Lopez himself.

In 1963, KLM - a Dutch airline - had the bright idea of booking Johnny Lion and the Jumping Jewels for a six-week gig at the Midway House in Karachi. The shows were billed as dinner/dance affairs and were a smash hit, with up to 150 to 200 couples jiving away into the small hours every night. It all seems like a million years ago now.

In 1964, the Intercontinental Hotel opened its doors for business. It was Karachi's first international hotel and the opening created much excitement among the city's socialite crowd - so much so that some Karachiites left their homes and checked in to the hotel for a few days during the week-long opening festivities.

Bikki Oberoi, the son of the founder of India's famous Oberoi Hotels chain, came to Karachi from New Delhi especially for the opening, along with his attractive wife, Guddi Oberoi. The Oberois were booked into a VIP suite at the Intercontinental. Bikki Oberoi had also brought his valet along. The valet, a turbaned Sikh name Tirlok Singh, stayed at the Palace Hotel, across the street from the Intercontinental. Tirlok Singh was a splendid-looking figure, and rumour had it that some Karachi ladies had been seen batting their eyelids at him on more than one occasion. Many Karachi gentlemen, meanwhile, kept trying to chat up the dazzling Guddi Oberoi - without any success, I might add.

The Intercontinental Hotel's supper club, Nasreen Room, became the place to be seen in of a Saturday night. There were times when the place seemed like a private party, because all the people there knew each other. Over the years, a succession of foreign bands were booked to play at the Nasreen Room. One of the most popular bands was a Italian group called Ivo Gillian's band. Ivo Gillian was the lead singer. He had a fine voice, but English was not his strong point.

In 1967, four friends of mine decided to jointly host a masked ball at the Clifton residence of one of the hosts. They had the idea of sending out invitations for the party in the form of a song specially composed for the occasion and recorded on 45 rpm records. The song began with the words: "This is an invitation to a ball/ An invitation to a wild masked ball/ We're making a date/ For Saturday, February the 28th..."

Now, all they needed was somebody to set the song to music and record it. They chose Ivo Gillian and his band for the job. The wife of one of the hosts spent days coaching Ivo with the pronunciation of the English lyrics as the band recorded version after version of the song. Finally, after about a week of this, the lady was satisfied that Ivo had had got the lyrics right.

"I hope you'll come to the party, Ivo," she said.

"Partie? What partie?" asked a bewildered Ivo.

(By Kaleem Omar, The News-29, Koachi-5, 28/08/2005)

Go to this link for "Historic Photos of Karachi"

http://www.urckarachi.org/Historic%20photo...Karachi.pps.ppt

its a powerpoint file

Another Very nice website for Historical Karachi Photo's from as early as 1840 to modern city of Karachi

http://www.historickarachi.com/

Yaar, I already have a thread on Karachi, and I seriously thought, no one was interested;
Karachi, The City Which Never Sleeps http://pakistanidefenceforum.com/index.php...c=64438&hl=

Thank you for highlighting my city again!!

Heritage Revisited http://www.historickarachi.com/heritage_revisited.htm

Modern Karachi http://www.historickarachi.com/the_modern_city.htm

My parents being from Karachi. Kharadar used to be the place where my dad lived during his childhood.

During those days men, women could go outside at nights without fear. Heroine, drugs, bombs were unheard of. Thanks to the mass exodus of Afghans into our cities, that changed completely. Ignorance and calling each other kaafirs is a hobby nowadays. There are green, brown, and other colored pagri folks propping up like no tomorrow. MQM/JI fight has taken its toll. Land mafia, druglords are running their businesses with total impunity, though they have been limited now.

Its not just Karachi it was whole of Pakistan, my family is from NWFP region and in 1960s people used to go for picnics and days out to the hills near Afghanistan with familys on weekends. The place was very amazing and nice and everyone was interested in education and making progress.

My uncles drive routinly from Turkey to Pakistan via Iran and Afghanistan and they said that Tehran and Kabul was so modern in those days with cafes and tourists. Even Kabul University was famous for its green and beautiful gardens however all that changed in 1979, 1) becuse of Iranian revolution and 2) because of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan also the two wars of 1965 and 1971 didnt help. If you look at GDP figures of South Korea in 1950s its lower than Pakistan because they had Korean War.

Karahi's History starts with Karakola, a marshy swamp, from where One of the Alexander's General Nearchus, sailed to Babylonia , some say it was the Present Manora Island.
With the Opening of Suez canal, significance of the Port of Karachi increased many folds, British spent about 250,000 Pounds Sterling on the development of Karachi Port in 1866-67.
and by 1914 it was the largest port , exporting Grain , from the Punjab to the rest of the world.it had a sizable populations of European traders, Iranians, Lebanese, Goan, Parsi and Hindu and Punjabi merchants., even then, back in 1860-70's.
At the time of Partition, five cities had TRAMS ,Calcutta now Kolkatta , Bombay now Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Karachi.
some one told me, they still have TRAMss in Kolkatta, and these trams are two-carraige trams.Bombay or Mumbai had doubledecker Trams, maybe HONG KONG still have them , I am not sure.in Karachi Mohammadi Trams company , used to Run these Trams, they had tracks, like used by the Trains, only of lesser gauge and nearly burried into the Road , unlike Rail tracks which are above ground.Mohammadi trams superceded the East India tram company, which used trams only for tranporting Goods, Mohammadi trams carried passengers.

My grand father told me, initially they were horse driven, but later were converted to diesel.its Main stop were Boulton Market, from where it would go as far as Kemari, over the NativeGetty bridge, down south. and up into the city it would go as far as Cant station, Zoological then " Gandhi gardens ", Napier Road,upto Lee Market, Soldier Bazar,touching the Holy Family Hospital.it had criss-cross routes , both from Kemari upto Cant, and from Cant upto Gandhi garden.
the place just adjacet to Rimpa Plaza , opp Plaza Cinema was its Tram Goddi, where they would shut the trams for night.
..these trams later became quiet a risky Bussines, with lack of maintainence, the OIL would leak, making the tracks and the road around it pretty slippery, also they developed some sort of brake problems, and would find it pretty difficult whenever they encountered a slope , they either going up the slope, or down the slope, they would slip, and at a number of times, were derailed.
.. I presume, it was 67 or 69 , when their operations were stopped.
although the rail line on which they would run, was left there as far as 72-73 , in the middle of the road.
... One can still, wander the street around Pakistan Chowk, Hindu Gymkhana, or Pakistan Arts council, , Area between Burns Road and City Station to get just a Glimse of how higly well planned it really was, to get a better understanding I suggest when the city is empty, preferaably after the Last " Isha " Prayers. ..where there is little traffic and one can absorb the real atmosphere.

...also My late grandfather Used to tell me,that they use to wash the streets of Karachi daily, as early as 1960-63.

There were trams, running from Kemari, on one end, with main station at Boulton Market, then via the then Bunder Road, passing in front of Star , Bambino upto the Bohri Bazar.
.... Going to Movies, was a cultural socienty affair, families would get the Booking in ADVANCE , as early as One month prior to the release of a Movie, Matinee shows , were the most popular,and after them the Evening shows,... like i said it would be a social gathering affair, Families would dress up for the occasion. Bambino, Naz , Nishat, Star , Jublee, Odean,Plaza...were the most frequented Cinemas.
the interval was the real occasion,when one enjoyed the social gathering the most, along with the Movie, meeting other families, exchanging pleasentaries,and getting in touch with latest happening
were done in those brief periods.

On Sundays, one would Hire a Victoria, and would visit Clifton.Sea Side,...

Things started detoriating, from the 68 onward.

... But that I will leave for some other time...

aquaris did u write that because its pretty accurate!

Yes , except for the Alexander's general part, and those figures , which I quoted, they were used from somewhere else....

You are a knowledgable person aquaris do you live in Karachi?

aquaris, Thanks. It is accurate narration.
I love Karachi.

My dad said they had crazy pool parties/galas in Peshawar in the 1960s...photos of the time, the streets were very different in Pakistan than they are now. I heard Karachi also had a world class aquarium with fish, dolphins, etc...

Karachi was very good city to live in right uptill the early 80s. There was no kalashnikov, no robberies, no carjackings, no bombings, no kidnappings, no MQM and the traffic was not that bad either. It was not the safest city in the world but there was no feeling of fear either. But above all the people of Karachi were good people. They were courteous, hospitable and fair. The British Council would have a free filmshow evening and anybody could just walk in. These days it is a fortress. I still remember the time when an American aircraft carrier anchored just of the coast and the whole Clifton/sharea faisal area was full of American sailors. Zainab market was the haunt of the Russians and there still a few brits leftover from the pre-independence days living in the civil lines area. It was truly a melting pot where everyone felt safe to walk around and do as they pleased. These days a foreigner would think twice about visiting the city, leave alone walk around freely.

The turning point was 1985 and the transport riots. Then followed the Orangi riots and after that the city fell to the MQM and the rest as they say is history. But the worst thing that happened was that the people of Karachi changed. Before 1985 it did not matter which race or culture you belonged to but after that Karachi was never the same again.

I hope there will come a day when Karachi regains its old glory but for the time being things do look pretty bad.

karachi missed out badly, if we didnt have currupt leadership in pakistan for years and years we could be alot more developed by now. Karachi could've been the dubai of air travel, instead of every flight going for dubai it could've gone out of karachi if oppertunities were taken advantage of.

But curruption destroyed that, hopefully the next 50 years wont be destroyed by curruption and pakistan can finally realise its potential.

There used to be nightclubs, a casino, a racecourse .... and alcohol was freely available everywhere ....

aquaris did u write that because its pretty accurate!

Aquaris .. the owners of Mohammadi Tram company were Bohri's & Valeka factory own also owned by Bohri's..

In the early 70's people use to call Pan mandi as Gam (village) .. Karachi was so full of fun & truly depicted Pakistan .. it is sad how extremism and terrorism has destroyed the core foundation of the city i.e; love has been changed to hatred.

Yes I think that goes for pretty much all of Pakistan now a sad fact