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When Ibrahim Pasha's al-Dubbarah Palace was demolished in 1906, British planners developed the site for diplomatic and residential use, laying down crescents and cul-de-sacs to create the illusion of lanes meandering through a Garden City . Until the Corniche road was ploughed through, embassies and villas boasted gardens running down to the Nile; nowadays, fishermen's shacks and vegetable plots line the river's edge. Aside from the traffic, it's a pleasant walk along the Corniche towards Roda Island, past a cluster of feluccas available for Nile cruises. Further inland, Art Deco residences mingle with heavily guarded embassies . Despite being outsized by the US - whose embassy here is the largest in the world - the British enjoy grander buildings with more spacious grounds, a legacy of their pre-eminence in the days of Lord Cromer and Sir Miles Lampson. The main artery, running south from Tahrir towards Old Cairo, is Sharia Qasr al-Aini , which goes from riches to rags, banks and villas yielding to cheap backstreet eating places near the Sayala Bridge. A bygone "Palace of the Spring" lends its name to the mixed neighbourhood between Garden City and the slaughterhouse district (see "Old Cairo"), and to Cairo's largest public hospital , erected in the 1960s, where Yusuf Idris practised as a doctor before devoting himself to writing. Roda Island and the mainland further south are described under "Old Cairo".
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