The Vasat Alipaşa Madrasa in Karagümrük—the building immediately to the right… It was later used as the Karagümrük Clinic. When we were in elementary school, once a year we’d line up in two rows as we left school, walk up the alleyways to the clinic, get our shots there, and then happily head back home. Because when we got our shots, there was no school the next day. Is it the rose with the thorn, or the thorn with the rose? Sure, it stung a little, but getting a 24-hour break from school was actually like winning the lottery for all of us…
The inside of the clinic was courtyard-shaped, and the hallways really did smell awful—that medicinal stench… What really scared us wasn’t getting the shot; it was that suffocating smell, for heaven’s sake… Such a pungent odor had seeped into the walls—nearly half a meter thick—and the wooden window sills that you’d think you weren’t getting a shot in your left arm; rather, your body was about to be sliced crosswise into equal cubes with a fine wood saw. That’s exactly what triggered such a burst of fear that made the children’s hearts tremble. Yet the staff were extremely compassionate people, with a very positive attitude toward us children—from the doctor down to the nurses…
In fact, I remember a similar smell—likely from disinfectant—from the cholera-stricken days of 1970–71. After the deadly cholera outbreak that began in Sağmalcılar, the neighborhood was placed under quarantine, and entry and exit were strictly prohibited. But just to be on the safe side, fumigation efforts in the city’s nearby neighborhoods—including, of course, our next-door neighbor Fatih—were carried out much more rigorously than in more distant areas.
I remember my mother taking the bottle of disinfectant she had procured—which smelled just like the one inside the Karagümrük Dispensary—and sprinkling a few drops into the rooms of our house every few days, especially in the corners of the guest room and the bedroom. Man, that place really smelled like a dispensary. Later on, thankfully, the cholera threat ended, and as a final measure (!), the name of Sağmalcılar was changed to Bayrampaşa! And that was the end of that.
From the trolleybus wires visible in the photo, we can tell that we’re past the fall of 1961. That’s because the first trolleybus arrived in Fatih during this period. The fact that the trees planted along the boulevard’s median and sidewalks are still saplings suggests that not much time has passed since Fevzipaşa—which opened to traffic in its new form with an asphalt surface in late 1960—began serving the public.
It’s a weekday in the fall. But it’s right around noon. The sun is bathing the building’s south-southwest facade in light like a plate. A little girl in a black apron is either on her way to school with her parent or has just gotten out of school and is heading home. The leaves of the trees, exposed to the sun’s rays all summer long, have now begun to wither noticeably. In less than a month, all the leaves will fall from the tree’s trunk, one by one.
Back in the day, the leaves on the trees weren’t as stubborn as they are now. By late September or early October, they’d all be on the ground, forming a thin, melon-colored blanket that crunched underfoot. These days, however, if they weren’t so shameless, they’d stubbornly cling to the trees and refuse to fall to the ground even by late December or early January. Of course, everything is changing these days—why shouldn’t the trees change too?
The mother is wearing a coat, the daughter an apron, and the son behind them a sweater. It seems the warm weather made for a lively day. The poor woman couldn’t get her children to listen; she couldn’t get the girl to put on her cardigan or the boy to put on his coat. At least she’s taken steps to protect herself. Otherwise, if she gets sick, the whole family will be miserable for three or four days…
There’s almost no traffic on the street. There are likely two reasons for this: both the much lower number of motor vehicles back then compared to today, and the fact that getting outside the city walls past Edirnekapı was quite difficult. After all, it would still be about ten years before a large, wide breach was cut in the city walls. Entering and exiting through the old main gate next to the Mihr-ü Mâh Mosque is quite a hassle. Waiting for oncoming vehicles on a single lane wastes a lot of time.
Of course, there is an alternative: It makes more sense to continue from Vatan, easily cross the walls via the Ulubatlı gap, proceed past the ruins, and then climb up to the Otakçılar side—on the other side of the Edirne Gate—via Beylerbeyi Street.
In fact, until 1973, there were only two bus and trolleybus routes passing through Fevzipaşa between Yavuzselim, Karagümrük, and Edirnekapı; one was the “86” Eminönü line, and the other was the “87” Taksim line. What they had in common was that both turned around in a U-shape at their terminal stops right in front of the mosque without ever leaving the city walls. Those serving the Eyüb, Rami, Taşlıtarla, Gaziosmanpaşa, Küçükköy, and Beşyüzevler areas, however, were forced to take a slightly longer route via Vatan and reached the outskirts of Edirnekapı via the Ulubatlı-Surboyu axis.
That’s the beauty of old Fatih photographs. Even from a faint snapshot containing just a few details, one can somehow squeeze out more than half a page of text…