Catinat Street in front of the Saigon Opera House, with the Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral in the distance.
The one-kilometer street was home to the city’s first hotels, post office and commercial buildings and one of the most famous streets in Saigon-Gia Dinh (the former name of HCMC).
The photo is part of an exhibition at the Museum of Ho Chi Minh of photos taken by naval doctor Bozoky Dezso in the early 20th century City to mark the visit of Hungarian National Assembly Speaker Kover Laszlo.
Hand-pulled rickshaws were a common means of transport in Vietnam since the late 19th century.
By the early 20th century the city had around 400 of them. The wheels were usually made of iron, but rubber for officials.
The rickshaw pullers typically wore conical hats and went barefoot.
The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens in 1909.
Built by the French in 1864, it is now one of the world’s oldest zoos.
The area was swampy before the French colonialists cleared it to build pathways and set up the first animal enclosures.
A funeral palanquin. “Bozoky Dezso’s works capture an important period in Vietnam’s history,” the exhibition organizers said. “They connect today’s audiences with his era.”
Offerings at a funeral. The photos displayed at the exhibition are digital copies from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest – Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts.
Life in Cho Lon Quarter along the Tau Hu Canal.
Cho Lon originally referred to a trading hub in Saigon and to distinguish it from Tan Kieng Market in Gia Dinh Province (now a part of HCMC).
Later the name came to cover Districts 5 and 6.
The area was once dubbed Ville de Cho Lon, which means a bustling commercial hub.
Dezso Bozoky (1871–1957) was also an amateur photographer known for his early 20th-century documentary photos of Asia. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
Between 1907 and 1909 he traveled through East Asia and visited major ports in China, Korea and Japan. On his return to Hungary, he stopped in Vietnam and explored Saigon, hailed then as the most important city in Indochina.
