City of Countless Names- Galata p2

Galata’s many docks and its proximity to Tophane’s busy harbors ensures the quarter remains the hub of European commerce in Constantinople. Banks and counting houses transact intercontinental business deals and money changers swap the multitude of foreign currencies brought by travelers for paras and piastres. European firms maintain offices in Galata and their agents sell and buy on their behalf. The waterside warehouses of Galata hold precious imports such as timber, salt, lead, meal, and honey. To prevent burglaries and fires most are built of stone, with iron doors and shutters on the windows.

The worst dregs of Constantinople’s criminal class dwell in Galata hoping to make money off recuperating soldiers, sailors on shore leave, and new arrivals uncertain of the city’s ways. Because of the Nithamiyeen intolerance of vice, spirits and prostitution thrive in the European quarter of Galata. Numerous public houses and liquor shops openly sell their wares to the French, English and Italian military men looking for entertainment. Most shelter gambling dens in their backrooms and basements ready to take any money left unspent. If a particularly lucky soul manages to take home winnings from their crooked roulette tables, a gang of toughs employed by the house wait in a dark alley nearby. Because of the legal tangles present whenever foreigners are brought to trial under Ottoman Law, most Zabtiye wash their hands of Galata’s sins and let all but the most obvious crimes go unsolved. Fearing for the lives and property of French citizens in Pera and Galata, French authorities deployed their soldiers to patrol the area in the hope of discouraging the quarter’s criminal element.

Galata Tower

Rising 220 feet above the cramped streets below, Galata Tower is the most visible landmark in the Pera-Galata metropolis. The majority of the tower is a massive stone cylinder, with an interior 141 spiraling steps leading up to the living quarters of the tower’s watchmen. Above their quarters is an observatory used by tourists and honored guests, surrounded by 14 windows. Another staircase leads to another smaller observatory, also surrounded by 14 windows showing the greatest panorama of Constantinople possible to a land-bound observer. Finally, a great cone of copper caps the magnificent stone tower. Although the tower’s basement sits unoccupied beneath its foundation, in the 16^th century it held Aluminat prisoners of war forced to build ships in the harbors of Kassim Pasha.

The Genoese merchants of Galata built the tower on the ruin of a much older tower, as part of their fortifications. In 1204, pillaging Crusaders demolished the original tower, which once anchored the massive chain pulled across the Golden horn, barring their ships from entry. After its construction in 1348, Galata Tower was the tallest structure in Constantinople and remains the best-preserved example of Genoese architecture. It has been saved from neglect and ruin primarily because of its use as a fire tower.

Four watchmen and four deputies take turns patrolling the highest observatory, watching the surrounding city for fires. If the man on duty spots a fire, he hoists a signal flag by day or a lantern by night to alert his brother watchman in the Seraskier’s tower across the Golden Horn and to identify which district is ablaze. The young deputies are immediately dispatched to direct soldiers, firemen, and water carriers to the conflagration.