Ever since the mid-19th century, when the sultans moved from Topkapi Palace to Dolmabahce, Istanbul has been becoming a more European city. Here, a few signs of that change.
Might as well start again at the Sublime Porte. (The roofline really grows on you. Today it resembles a giant ray pulsating in warm water.)
Here's the main channel of the Bosporus, with European Turkey on the left and Asiatic Turkey on the right. The view is from Topkapi palace looking north. The ferry is heading west toward the Golden Horn, a dead-end branch off the Bosporus. The Black Sea is straight ahead but out of sight. Behind the camera, the Bosphorus opens into the Sea Marmara, creating the stubby peninsula on which Constantinople was built.
Here's the Golden Horn, that dead-end arm of the Bosporus. The view here is to the west, up-channel. On the right side is what a century ago was called Pera, the European part of Constantinople. On the left is the historic city and the district called Eminonu.
The ferry terminal at Eminonu, just inside the Golden Horn. Despite the new bridges, ferries across the Bosporus are still very active.
Eminonu itself is an intensely crowded district, despite the impression given in this picture. The porter is bent under a load of boxes. Their weight sits on a frame resting on his pelvis.
A more typical moment: traffic to reckon with.
This triumphal arch is obviously Roman, but with Islamic detailing. Strange for a university? This is a case of creative readaptation, because the original tenant in the building behind the arch, completed in 1864, was the Ministry of War.
Inside. The roof seems a bit sheared. Could there have been more at one time?
Enough of grandeur; let's go fishing. Here, the Galata Bridge, across the Golden Horn. This picture was taken from the north side, looking back to the old city. In the right distance, the Suleimaniye mosque.
Ah, that promised European influence! It's the Sirkeci railway station, opened in Pera in 1890.
The inside is more traditional.
Very much in use still: the archaic elevator in the Perapalas Oteli, or Pera Palace Hotel, which was built in the 1890s by Georges Nagelmackers, the same Belgian who organized the Orient Express. After all, he needed a place to accommodate his passengers once he got them here. (The hotel closed for renovations in 2006, after this picture was taken, but it reopened in 2010.)
Keep walking into Pera. Back in the days of Mata Hari, this street (now called Istiklal Caddesi, or Independence Avenue) was the Grande Rue de Pera—the heart of European Constantinople. It's pretty up-market now, too.
The tram has been freshly restored as part of an effort to rejuvenate the neighborhood. Urban planners read the same magazines worldwide and adopt the same cute strategies to capture tourist dollars.
This is the gate of the Galatasaray Lycee, built in 1868 so young members of the Ottoman nobility could be exposed to European ideas. Yes, the name is used by Istanbul's professional football team, which was founded here.
Milan? Nope: a covered arcade off Istaklal Caddesi.
Not explicit enough? How about this: Victoria Regina, on the gate of the British Embassy.
