Soğukçeşme Sokağı

Soğukçeşme Sokağı is a narrow, cobbled, car free street in Sultanahmet running between Hagia Sophia and the outer wall of Topkapı Palace. One end begins beside the Bab-ı Hümayun, the first gate of Topkapı Palace, and the other end descends towards Gülhane Park. It takes its name from the marble fountain at its Gülhane end, which dates from the reign of Selim III, from the year 1800. Twelve historic houses and a Roman era cistern line the street. History According to the Turkish Wikipedia the street took shape in the 18th century; the oldest document is a record of a plot sale dated 1784, and the oldest title deed dates from 1782. Its first residents were staff of the palace and of Hagia Sophia and the sheikh of the Naziki lodge. In time the middle class families of Istanbul settled here. Fahri Korutürk, the sixth president of the Republic, was born in this street in 1903, and the house where he was born still stands. The houses are two or three storey wooden Turkish houses with bay windows and lattices; they range in size from four to ten rooms. From the 1950s to the 1980s the street decayed rapidly. Some wooden houses were demolished and replaced with concrete buildings, one building became a car repair shop, and another filled up with piles of printing paper. Restoration The Touring and Automobile Club of Turkey, led by its general manager of the time, Çelik Gülersoy, bought the houses in 1985 and renewed the street from end to end in 1985-1986. According to the club's own history, the restoration of the row of wooden houses was completed in 1986 and the houses were opened as guesthouses. As the Turkish Wikipedia relates, all the buildings between Hagia Sophia and the palace wall were demolished and rebuilt to new designs. The new houses are wooden cladding on a reinforced concrete frame, and the facades were painted in the pastel colours described by 19th century travellers. This method was praised for saving the appearance of the street as much as it was debated for not preserving the original wooden fabric in place. The arrangement of the cistern is by Mustafa Pehlivanoğlu, the library by Hüseyin Başçetinçelik and Hatice Karakaya, and the four guesthouses by separate architects. Today Nine of the houses are now used as guesthouses that remain in the ownership of the Touring Club and are leased to a hotel operator; the houses carry the names of the flowering plants around them. The Roman era cistern at the end of the street is three metres high and sixteen metres long; today it is run as a restaurant. The İstanbul Kitaplığı, the Istanbul Library at number 36, is a foundation library opened in 1990 with the collection that Çelik Gülersoy assembled over forty years. The library holds only works relating to Istanbul. In the 1994 count 8,100 works were classified under thirteen main headings; the English Wikipedia counts more than 10,000 books today. Its visual collection of engravings, the first photographs of the city and postcards is especially valuable for researchers. The library is open on certain days of the week; check the current days and hours on the page of the Çelik Gülersoy Foundation. Visiting The street is an open space and can be walked freely at any hour. Enter from the Bab-ı Hümayun side; on one side of you is Hagia Sophia, on the other the palace wall, and between them the pastel coloured houses with their bay windows. As you go down towards Gülhane with the bend of the street, look at how the colours of the facades change in turn, at the latticed windows and the wooden eaves. Stop in front of the fountain and look at its inscription; it is the structure that gave the street its name. In the early morning the street is empty and the shaded side is good for photographs; in the afternoon the sun strikes the facades of the houses. The street is a breathing space a few steps away from the crowds of Sultanahmet and the quietest way down from Hagia Sophia to Gülhane Park. Getting there The Sultanahmet and Gülhane stops of the T1 tram connect to the two ends of the street with a few minutes' walk. You can also come on foot from the Marmaray Sirkeci station through Gülhane Park. The Tanpınar Literature Museum Library in the Alay Köşkü and Gülhane Park can be combined in the same walk.