Saddar is the old colonial downtown of Karachi, and walking its streets is like reading a palimpsest of the city's history — each layer partially obscuring the one beneath. The neighbourhood was laid out by the British in the 19th century around a cantonment and a commercial district, and the bones of that plan are still visible: wide roads, large civic buildings, and a grid that becomes increasingly chaotic as you move toward the bazaars at its edges. Empress Market, with its Gothic tower, anchors one end; the Sindh Assembly and the Hindu Gymkhana anchor another.
Much of Saddar's former grandeur has faded. The department stores that once lined Zaibunissa Street are mostly gone, replaced by mobile phone vendors and fabric shops. The cinemas are closed or converted. Buildings that were impressive in the 1940s are now impressive ruins. But this is also what makes the neighbourhood worth exploring: it is a living archive of a city that has been through more transformations than most, and the street life — the booksellers on the pavement, the mechanics working in buildings that were once banks, the chai wallahs outside government offices — is dense and endlessly watchable.