The Day the “Turf” Burned on Adly Street (Rare Photos)

Do not be surprised by the irony when you learn that the part of the gas station on Adly Street extending toward Abdel Khalek Tharwat Street exists thanks to a massive fire that led to the demolition of the building that once stood on the site, while also forever destroying the building’s symbolic significance.
The building consisted of an elegant white two-story palace and included everything needed to provide a comfortable atmosphere for anyone entering the building, whose English name was “Turf Club,” meaning “grass club.”

The club took its name from a venerable English club that began operating in Britain in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. In Egypt, it began operating on Adly Street a few years after the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 and remained there until it burned down.
Together with the “Khedive’s Club,” later the Gezira Sporting Club, it was considered one of the two most prestigious clubs in Egypt, admitting only members of the elite English aristocracy. The Turf Club continued to refuse Egyptian membership, unlike the Gezira Club, which later allowed Egyptians to join.
This excessive symbolism of the club’s Englishness made it hated by Egyptians as an unmistakable colonial symbol of the occupier of their country, an unwelcome presence particularly opposed by political movements that raised the slogan of resisting the occupation.
This hostility led to the building being targeted and treated with extreme brutality in the Cairo Fire on 26 January 1952 by those who had orchestrated the blaze.
According to the British account of the building’s fire, which may contain some exaggeration, the incident was bloody and not merely a fire: the attackers smashed everything, set fire to the furniture, and killed 40 members who were present.

Another account stated that some of those inside fled, and that a number of Egyptians enabled them to hide in a neighboring building.
The club’s name appeared in one of the stories in “A Collection of 11 Excellent Stories” by the English writer Algernon Blackwood (1869 to 1951), when the story’s protagonist arrived in Cairo and gave the Turf Club in Cairo as his temporary address.
It also appeared in the story of the German spy Eppler, who was in Egypt during World War II and was hidden by the dancer Hikmat Fahmy in her houseboat, while officer Anwar Sadat repaired his radio. Eppler frequented the club disguised as an English officer, and the club’s barman became suspicious of him and reported him to the British military police because “Eppler” paid for his drinks in sterling pounds, while all officers paid in Egyptian pounds, the currency in which they received their salaries in Egypt.