Across the street, the owner of a beverage shop points to his father’s solemn portrait on the wall. With obvious pride, the owner says his family has been selling grape juice on this spot since 1908.
A few doors down, men of all ages sip hot tea from thimble-size glasses and smoke elaborate water pipes at the Cafe of Hassan, reported to be a 200-year-old meeting spot.
This is Rashid Street, one of Baghdad’s oldest roads, a place that at first glance seems to have been spared damage in the war between Iraq and the United States. There are no bomb craters on this block near Maidan Square.
Soldiers did not fight here. Looters did not pillage much if at all.
But the ragged stretch of shops in the city’s core did not fare quite that well. The war has wrecked its rhythms. With no electricity, juice stand employees must crush grapes by hand. With little work to be had, cafe patrons sit and smoke all day. With few customers, the barber can revisit the past because he’s not needed at the present.
The street itself, now slowly rebounding with the rest of the capital, has long been the victim of a separate war. Its twin enemies are time and a steady fall from its former status as a top avenue for cafes, magnet for intellectuals and spot for strolling idly among shops.
Even amid decline and disruption, though, the street offers reminders of roots long predating the rise of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1979. Rashid Street’s very architecture harks back to the fading days of the Ottoman Empire, whose long and bitter control of the country ended in 1918.
Now, Hussein is gone from power, and the shops on the street are reopening one by one. The buildings they occupy are still standing, however wobbly, as they have for a century or more.
Rashid Street stretches less than two miles, and not in a straight line. Beginning at Jumhuriya Bridge, it snakes this way and that, meandering along the Tigris River until ending at Maidan Square and a dirty scrap market.
A drive the length of the road shows signs of the war and its aftermath: two bank buildings, both cleaned out; a telephone switching center with a gash in its side; the partially ruined Defense Ministry complex at the street’s north end.
Equally eye-catching, though, are the graceful wooden porticoes that poke out from many of the two- and three-story facades. These shuttered overhangs, with their iron balconies, remind an American of New Orleans’ French Quarter, but they are a gift of the Turks called shanashils.
This style of design is not seen elsewhere in Baghdad, a sprawling, 1,200-year-old city that is nonetheless crammed with blocky, 1960s-style construction. Adding to the striking effect of the balconies and porticoes are the thick columns, made of brick and covered in decades worth of peeling paint, that support them.
Tucked underneath are the shops run by people such as Hikmat al-Hilli. This has been his first full week back at work since the war began March 20.
“All Iraqis are happy now,” he said, walking outside to greet two visitors Saturday. “God bless America. This is the truth.”
Al-Hilli, 78, has wavy white hair combed just so. Barely 5 feet tall and jowly, he has a dignified manner. Every day he wears a white shirt, black pants, suspenders, striped tie and cufflinks.
All week long he has had no electricity or water in the shop. It hasn’t mattered much; he doesn’t really need either. He has had only a few customers. That has given him time to talk about his long career and the street where he has worked since 1948.
His personal highlight came during the 1940s when he got to cut the hair of King Faisal, then a boy about 10. Al-Hilli was a young barber then. He landed the choice job, he said, because he and a royal officer came from the same town and he cut that officer’s hair.
When the officer was asked to recommend a barber for the young king, he suggested al-Hilli, or so the story goes. Whatever the details, the barber has his proof in black and white. An Iraqi tourism magazine in 2001 published an English-language article about him: “A stop at the king’s hairdresser.”
His stories tend to focus on people close to the royal family, not the members. But one memory he shared was of the day he was cutting the boy’s hair at the Princes Palace when a young King Hussein of Jordan showed up and asked for a trim.
Al-Hilli remembers many educated and high-profile Iraqis flocking to Rashid Street during that time.
In the 1940s, the Cafe of Hassan was a sort of celebrity hangout, he said, a place where knowing someone could help you get a table.
“They were like kings on this street,” al-Hilli said of the crowds. “People dressed very well, lived the high life. They were all educated.”
Still saddened about King Faisal’s assassination in a 1958 coup, which set off a decade of political turmoil until the Baath Party took over, al-Hilli longs for a new monarchy but knows such dreams are hopeless.
Mohammad Mohammadi, the stout 60-year-old proprietor of Haaj Zbala Juice, said the street peaked between 1945 and the late 1950s. Cafes were packed and artisans turned out handmade leather goods, clothes and jewelry.
“This street was very crowded,” he said. “You couldn’t walk down the street. It was like Piccadilly Circus in London.”
Today the paint peels off the column in front of his grape juice shop. The entire second floor on that side of the block, once a hotel and medical clinic, leans. The wood facade is broken in places.
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Al-Hilli and Mohammadi were among the few shop owners who dared open their metal gates. The rest were still afraid of looting.
As other parts of the city bounced back, Rashid Street remained oddly quiet.
Ali Hussein, a barber near al-Hilli’s, was closed. Rasheed’s Workshop, an electronics repair shop, closed. Kusay’s Electronics, closed. Bayan sewing machine repair, closed.
Shourouk gift shop, with its green gift box and ribbon logo, also closed.
The same for the Rihab Hotel, its dingy white doors locked tight. Cocktail Al Shahaad, a fast-food joint with a cocktail of offerings, closed.
On the opposite side of Rashid Street it is much the same. Sahib clothing, Jasim clothing, Ibrahim Khalil al-Rawi clothing importer – all closed.
Finally, Ahmed al-Lami broke the trend. His knickknack shop, two doors from the juice place, was in business. The shelves and trays held combs, batteries and parts for hot plates. The only items moving were the padlocks.
Even with a 100 percent markup, from 25 cents to 50 cents, al-Lami was nearly out of the locks.
“People need these things for security,” he said.
The owner of the Rihab Hotel, which has balconies and turquoise trim, has seen no reason to open. The students who rent the sparsely furnished rooms for $10 per month went home when the war began, said Salam Salman, 28, the owner.
Before the war, Iraqi security officials stopped by once a month to find out who was there, he said. Sometimes the authorities demanded money from him for no good reason.
Now he stops by his shuttered hotel just to check on it. He has savings but worries that he will have to sell the business if things don’t improve soon.
Even Mohammadi, an optimistic man, had to raise the price on his grape juice because of the extra labor. Usually he charges about a dime; now, it’s a quarter.
Many of the concerned or just cranky have gravitated to the Cafe of Hassan.
It has benches out front and more inside with wicker cushions. Four mirrors hang from the back wall, but it is still dark. A clock hangs from the wall, its pendulum counting the seconds the men while away. Ceiling fans sit idle, a landing zone for flies.
Small gas tanks feed four tea and coffee pots. Men read newspapers, smoke pipes, drink tea. Some are deep in animated conversation, others lost in their own thoughts.
The owner angrily deflected an attempt to confirm the cafe’s age at 200.
“All Iraq is burned,” he growled, “and you want to talk about history.”
Ismael Ibrahim Najem, 50, sat on one bench, smoking through a nergeela, a 3-foot-high wood pipe. Tobacco smoke drifts down the pipe, is filtered by water and goes out the tube to the smoker.
Najem, who has a thick mustache and smiles often, worked as a driver for a Russian company before the war. “The company left,” he said, “and I am just sitting here.”
For now, he sits daily at the cafe, smoking and working his prayer beads.
“In this cafe everything is normal; we feel we are good here, we can rest,” he said. “Outside the cafe, the situation is not stable.”
By yesterday, another handful of shops had opened. But power was still out in the district, and water service was spotty. And not everyone felt safe.
The day before, two shots rang out less than a hundred yards from the cafe. Seconds later, a young man in a white tank top walked jauntily past, Kalashnikov rifle at his side. He turned down an alley and disappeared.
No one knew why he fired the shots, where he was headed or if he was coming back.
<!– ART CREDITELIZABETH MALBY : SUN STAFF PHOTOS
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTA man makes his way slowly past the barber shop of Hikmat al-Hilli on once-fashionable Rashid Street, one of Baghdad's oldest thoroughfares.
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ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTWith few customers, Hikmat al-Hilli has time to reminisce about his work – he cut the hair of King Faisal II – and better days.
CUTLINE TEXT–> <!– ART CREDITELIZABETH MALBY : SUN STAFF PHOTOS
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTRashid Street is emblematic of the passing of an era, its architecture harking to the Ottoman Empire. Few women are seen here as men stand about chatting and passing time.
CUTLINE TEXT–> <!– ART CREDIT
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTIsmael Ibrahim Najem smokes a traditional pipe in front of the Hassan Cafe, a 200-year-old meeting spot that used to be a celebrity haunt. With little work to be had, there's not much else for people to do.
CUTLINE TEXT–> <!– ART CREDIT
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTA man strolls past some of the many closed shops on Rashid Street, which was in decline long before the war.
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