City of Countless Names- Tophane p1

Moving south to the shore of the Bosporus, we finally reach the last quarter of Constantinople North of the Golden Horn, the industrial dockside quarter of Tophane.

 Tophane (Arsenal, Top-Khaneh Metopon)

Every traveler carried by ship to Constantinople takes their first step into the city at the chaotic quarter of Tophane. The beautiful, exotic metropolis glimpsed from offshore vanishes replaced by a filthy, industrial reality. A complex of piers in a state of disrepair meets muddy and indifferently-paved streets. Small wooden houses pushed close together around narrow alleys seem to invite the devastation of a city fire. Only a short distance from shore, the tightly clustered rookery briefly opens to the beautiful square containing Tophane Fountain bordered on the east by Nusretiye Mosque and on the north by the cannon foundry. In the background, the elegance of Pera rises up the slope.

The smallest neighborhood on the northern shore, Tophane grows east out of Galata and ends west of Findikli. This diminutive patch of turf was the Greek village of Metopon before the conquest of the Ottomans in 1453.  The Ottoman fleet began their circumnavigation of the Golden Horn’s defenses by portaging their fleet up the Tophane banks and across the Galata peninsula on wooden planks. Two years after his victory, Sultan Mehmed II here built Tophane’s cannon foundry to produce more of the guns which had proved so effective against Constantinople’s defenders. The surrounding village grew into the first industrial center along the Golden Horn, and gained its name meaning “Gun House”.

Waves of new arrivals eager to reach their lodgings, hamals stooped by their work, and donkey’s bearing heavy burdens pour through the streets. Most aquatic excursions leaving Pera-Galata for Scutari or the villages further up the Bosporus embark from Tophane’s docks, adding commuting tradesmen, foreign sightseers, and social-calling locals to the bustling crowds. Everywhere peddlers sell grapes and flat cakes to hungry passersby. Tophane holds a heterogeneous variety of peoples, most numerous are the working-class Greek and Armenians.

The Ottoman military seems omnipresent in Tophane. Along with the cannon foundry, waterside workshops produce deadly projectiles for the increasingly outdated Ottoman artillery. A shipyard at the docks produces ships for their navy. A large barracks accommodates the contingent of Turkish soldiers watching over the mouth of the Golden Horn. Now in war, the Turkish military and their European allies daily set off from the quarter’s docks as supplies and fresh troops arrive.

Commerce flourishes in Tophane. Every day workmen unload exotic new wares from foreign markets. Merchant’s offices make sure goods newly imported or due for export fill their warehouses and customs officials keep a keen eye on trade laws.  In the street, vendors sell wares the get “lost” on their way up the gangplank. Everything is for sale. Despite its banishment from the Ottoman Empire, a band of Circassian slavers still auction their fellow man in the hidden corners of Tophane. Smugglers bring their stock of human tragedy from the North African coast.

Despite the blue beauty of the Bosporus, industrial filth and waste from docked ships thicken the waters of Tophane. Mules carry loads of trash accumulated in Pera and other neighborhoods further up the hill down to Tophane’s docks to dump their disgusting burdens into the water. Horrible things often drift ashore.