Time Frame: On the Waterfront

The Corniche end of Airport Road, at the intersection with Al Ittihad Square. Shaukat Ali Sufi Muhammad / Al Ittihad

This is the heart of Abu Dhabi, captured in all its detail in the mid-1970s by Shaukat Ali Sufi Muhammad, a staff photographer with Al Ittihad newspaper who recently retired after nearly four decades of service.

New arrivals, and even not so new arrivals, might struggle to place the scene, although it is one of the most familiar vistas in the capital.

This is the Corniche end of Airport Road, at the intersection with Al Ittihad Square, but before the construction of those giant landmarks that include the familiar concrete cannon and coffee pot. Instead, there is the original Central Bus Terminus, the anonymous rectangular building just behind the roundabout in the centre of the photo, that preceded the current bus station by Al Wahda Mall.

Behind the terminus are the fantastical minarets and turrets of a mosque built to a South Asian design, and since demolished.

The view of the Corniche in the background includes a clock tower, itself another vanished landmark, and dredgers at work reclaiming land. While today’s view would take in Lulu Island, the public beach and the new Central Market project, the bones of the city, almost 40 years on, remain the same.

* James Langton

Explore our pictorial history of old Abu Dhabi with the interactive map below, and see all of our Time Frames here.

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