"As for Thessaloniki", talking about his city, the poet and painter Nikos Gavriil Pentzikis, "one should enter it from the sea." From a distance, the city truly had a story-book quality. Yet, as one traveller of 1878 remembers, "when you enter the town, you are amazed to see nothing but narrow, crooked lanes, badly built houses and not one square, not one paved crossroads."
See also: In Search of Salonika’s Lost Synagogues. An Open Question Concerning Intangible Heritage by Cristina Pallini, Annalisa Riccarda Scaccabarozzi
"...In the final decades of the 19th century Salonika was the second most important Ottoman city. After the Tanzimat (1839-76), a period of institutional and social reforms aimed at modernizing the Empire while furthering its multicultural nature, non-Muslims and non-Turks became more thoroughly integrated into Ottoman society and were granted new civil rights. Described as a “bazaar-city,” Salonika was also known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans” for its predominantly Jewish[1] population, often the subject of comment by travelers:
“I notify to the lovers of ethnography this interesting experience: a sort of Jewish nation left on its own under the most tolerant of despotisms, and forming the majority of a great cosmopolitan city.” ... “Salonika is neither Greek nor Ottoman; it is rather a Jewish city, a sort of Jerusalem.”... “All the boatman of the port are Jews, and on Saturdays no steamer can load or discharge cargo. Porters and shoeblacks, bricklayers and silk-hands, are all Jews.”
Map of the lower city with the area occupied by the Jewish quarters (reconstruction by C. Pallini): Plan de Salonique, dresséé et dessinée par l’Ingenieur en Chef de la Municipalité de Salonique A. Wernieski, 1880, and Albertos Nar’s Map of the Jewish quarters of Thessaloniki before the fire of 1917, ca. 1980.
"...In the final decades of the 19th century Salonika was the second most important Ottoman city. After the Tanzimat (1839-76), a period of institutional and social reforms aimed at modernizing the Empire while furthering its multicultural nature, non-Muslims and non-Turks became more thoroughly integrated into Ottoman society and were granted new civil rights. Described as a “bazaar-city,” Salonika was also known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans” for its predominantly Jewish[1] population, often the subject of comment by travelers:
“I notify to the lovers of ethnography this interesting experience: a sort of Jewish nation left on its own under the most tolerant of despotisms, and forming the majority of a great cosmopolitan city.” ... “Salonika is neither Greek nor Ottoman; it is rather a Jewish city, a sort of Jerusalem.”... “All the boatman of the port are Jews, and on Saturdays no steamer can load or discharge cargo. Porters and shoeblacks, bricklayers and silk-hands, are all Jews.”
Map of the lower city with the area occupied by the Jewish quarters (reconstruction by C. Pallini): Plan de Salonique, dresséé et dessinée par l’Ingenieur en Chef de la Municipalité de Salonique A. Wernieski, 1880, and Albertos Nar’s Map of the Jewish quarters of Thessaloniki before the fire of 1917, ca. 1980.
Mavi Boncuk |
The city layout of Thessaloniki started to change after 1870, when the seaside fortifications gave way to extensive piers, and many of the oldest walls of the city were demolished, including those surrounding the White Tower, which today stands as the main landmark of the city. As parts of the early Byzantine walls were demolished, this allowed the city to expand east and west along the coast.
Thessaloniki around 1900
The Sublime Porte's attempts at modernization, the ensuing economic prosperity, as well as the big fire of 1890 gave a new, "European" look to the city, where the religiously homogeneous neighborhoods began to be replaced by a topographical distribution based on income. The new docks, which were now united with the railroad station to serve the burgeoning commercial needs, the quay and the impressive Hamidye Boulevard were built with materials taken from the old eastern and sea walls which were demolished in that period. At the same time, broad streets were opened, such as the famous Cadde de Vede (today's Ayia Sophia Avenue), Tsimiski and Saabri Pasha (now Venizelou).
Thessaloniki was famous for its cafes as early as the 17th century. Evliya Celebi mentions 20 drinking establishments and 17 "brilliant cafes, where musicians, singers, dwarfs, and tellers of ribald tales entertained the customers. They were also frequented by the love-sick, dandies, poets, travellers and literati, who whiled away the days and nights amusing themselves in good company." By the middle of the last century, the only thing that had changed was their names; one could enjoy a female orchestra from Bohemia playing pieces from operettas in the "Kolombo", or watch a cabaret in "La Turquie" cafe-beer hall, or a pantomime at the "Malik".
One could also attend Italian operas and French musical comedy shows at the "Eden", "Alhambra" or "White Tower" theatres and, later, cinema at the "Olympia" and "Pallas". One could sample Italian and French cuisine at the "Restaurant de Toutes les Nations" and drink imported beer at "Christos's" or "Yeoryiadis's" pubs in the marketplace. At the luxury cafes like the "Crystal" and the "Olympe", the price of a "Wiener melange" included the use of 15 newspapers, 20 magazines and several carafes of fresh water from Mount Hortiatis, while at the city's many clubs, locals and Franco-Levantine aristocrats held receptions, dances and costume balls, or played cards, flirted and occasionally plotted.
Plan of Thessaloniki 1890-1917 "Plan of Thessaloniki before the fire of 1917, published in the local newspaper "L' Independant", 1890-1917, Thessaloniki."
The expansion of Eleftherias Square towards the sea completed the new commercial hub of the city and at the time was considered one of the most vibrant squares of the city. As the city grew, workers moved to the western districts, due to their proximity to factories and industrial activities; while the middle and upper classes gradually moved from the city-center to the eastern suburbs, leaving mainly businesses. In 1917, a devastating fire swept through the city and burned uncontrollably for 32 hours. The majority of Thessaloniki was largely destroyed in the fire and it destroyed the city's historic center and a large part of its architectural heritage. The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos forbade the reconstruction of the city center until a modern city plan was approved. He commissioned Ernest Hébrard[2] for the work, which the architect conceived and developed with the aid of the Greek architects Aristotelis Zachos and Konstantinos Kitsikis and paved the way for modern development and allowed Thessaloniki the development of a European styled city center, featuring wider diagonal avenues and monumental squares.
[1] While Greeks assembled in the south-eastern area of the Hippodrome and the Palace of Galerius, and Turks occupied the upper town, the Jews were concentrated in the partially-deserted lower town adjacent to the port and market areas.The Jews who arrived from the Iberian Peninsula found there the old Romaniote synagogue Etz Haim and the more recent synagogues Askhenaz, Italia and Sicilia. Those who had originally come from Spain considered themselves more civilized and refined than the other immigrants and were inclined to remain aloof. They came from many areas and, like the Italian Jews, tended to group together by home town, city, or area of origin. Thus new Jewish communities became established and new synagogues were founded: Gerush Sefarad (Expelled from Spain), Castilia, Catalan, Aragon and Mayor (Majorca). Others were founded by Portuguese Jews (Portugal, 1497 or 1525; Lisbon, 1510; Evora, 1512 or 1535) and by Jews from Calabria (Calabria, 1497) and Southern Italy (Puglia, 1502). The 1519 survey reports the 16 Jewish neighborhoods that recreated 15th-century Spain in Salonika.
[2] Ernest Hébrard (1875–1933) was a French architect, archaeologist and urban planner who completed major projects in Greece, Morocco, and French Indochina. He is mostly renowned for his urban plan for the redevelopment of the center of Thessaloniki in Greece after its Great Fire of 1917.
The plan did away with the medieval and Oriental (Ottoman) features of Thessaloniki, preserved its Byzantine heritage, and transformed it into a European-style city, with boulevards and contemporary roadways, squares and parks. His work is well known in the architecture schools of Greece. Hébrard taught at the National Technical University of Athens, but he was also involved in several other major projects, such as the upgrading of Casablanca, the reconstruction of Diocletian's palace at Split, and later the planning for several towns in French Indochina. He was appointed the head of the Indochina Architecture and Town Planning Service in 1923. He worked to incorporate into the French architecture being built there elements of indigenous design from the colonial territories of French Indochina, now Việt Nam, Cambodia and Laos. After his work in Indochina he went again to Athens and worked for the Greek state.
In 1931 he returned to Paris, where he died at the age of 58 two years later.
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