Page 215 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

City and countryside in modern Bahrain 195

14 a Bab al-Bahrayn (north side) with the Customs Square, 1948–9
b Bab al-Bahrayn (south side), c. 1958

offices were relocated to a large compound on reclaimed land on the

northeastern coast (see Figure 14a and Figure 14b).

Policies on health and sanitation promoted the new civic spirit of
modernity. The first modern medical facilities were established at the
beginning of the twentieth century by the American missionaries and by
the British agency, which had subsidised the construction of the Victoria
Memorial Hospital in 1904. The government-built al-Na‘im and al-
Salmaniyyah hospitals were added on the outskirts of town, in 1937 and
1959 respectively. Dramatic improvements in sanitation reflected the
achievements of the baladiyyah. Streets in the markets were widened in