By Dr. Saad Bashir
This building has been mentioned before.The family of a boyhood friend of mine lived in an apartment in this building for nearly 40 years – till 1985.On the roof at the seaward corner of the building was a bunker – the remains of which can be seen. Till 1947 it housed a cannon which was supposed to shell any ships attacking Keamari harbour.During WWII, the building functioned as a hospital and therefore was built in such a way that the apartments on both floors were interconnected and if they opened their doors one could walk from one end to the other.The building was named after Charles Mules, the 4th Chairman of the Karachi Port Trust (1902).In July 1947 Yousuf Haroon arranged to rent apartments in this building for 7 Dawn reporters who had migrated to Karachi. My friend’s father was one of them. He later became the founding editor of the Sun newspaper which inaugurated a new era in print journalism in Pakistan.
Let me add to the list of other lumanaries of this building since 1947: Mohammad Ashir (I think he was associate editor of Dawn), Sultan Ahmed (Editor of Daily News and Morning News and a regular contributor to Dawn), M.A. Zuberi (started with Dawn, later founder of Business Recorder), I H Burney (Dawn and Outlook),Minai family who lived there (Ishaq, Suleiman). Pirzada Qasim (the VC of Univ of Karachi and poet) and many more.
- Edwin FigueiredoThe Architect was Moses Somake
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Good Old Karachi 