Nişantaşı is an upmarket, largely secular residential neighbourhood in the

Şişli Şişli () is one of the 39 districts of Istanbul, Turkey. Located on the European side of the city, it is bordered by Beşiktaş to the east, Sarıyer to the north, Eyüp and Kağıthane to the west, and Beyoğlu to the south. In 2009, Şi ...

district on the European side of

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. Separated from

Osmanbey Osmanbey is one of the four neighbourhoods (together with Teşvikiye, Maçka and Pangaltı) within the Nişantaşı quarter of the Şişli district in Istanbul, Turkey. Osmanbey is also home to the Beth Israel Synagogue built in 1940.The trans ...

and

Pangaltı Pangaltı (spelled Pangaaltı or Pancaldi in some older sources) is one of the four neighborhoods (together with Teşvikiye, Maçka and Osmanbey) within the Nişantaşı quarter of the Şişli district in Istanbul, Turkey. It is home to the C ...

to the west by busy Halaskargazi Caddesi, it is a popular shopping district, full of boutiques,

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

café A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-ca ...

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

s and

night clubs A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

. Many of the streets are still full of fine 19th and early 20th-century apartment blocks. Directly to the south lies the large and leafy

Maçka Park Maçka Democracy Park is a recreational area in Istanbul, Turkey, which has paths for jogging, walking and dog walking. It also has children's areas, rest areas and benches and decorative pools. December 2016 bombing On 10 December 2016, the pa ...

and to the east the city district

Beşiktaş Beşiktaş () is a district and municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, located on the European shore of the Bosphorus strait. It is bordered on the north by Sarıyer and Şişli, on the west by Kağıthane and Şişli, on the south by Beyoğlu, and ...

. Nişantaşı provides the backdrop for several novels by

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...

Turkish novelist

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three lan ...

, a local resident for many years. Journalist

Ece Temelkuran Ece Temelkuran (born 22 July 1973, in Izmir"About"
ecetemelkuran.com ) is a Turkish journalist and author. She was ...

compared the neighbourhood to

Greenwich Village, Manhattan Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village al ...

. The nearest Metro stop to Nişantaşı is

on the M2 line. Many bus and dolmuş services plough up and down Halaskargazi Caddesi, linking Nişantaşı to Taksim and

Mecidiyeköy Mecidiyeköy is a heavily built-up residential and business neighbourhood in the Şişli district of Istanbul, Turkey squeezed in between the Fulya, Kuştepe, Gültepe, Esentepe, and Gülbahar neighbourhoods. In 2021 its estimated population was ...

History

In the middle of the 19th century, Nişantaşı was settled by Ottoman Sultan

Abdülmecid I Abdulmejid I ( ota, عبد المجيد اول, ʿAbdü'l-Mecîd-i evvel, tr, I. Abdülmecid; 25 April 182325 June 1861) was the 31st Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and succeeded his father Mahmud II on 2 July 1839. His reign was notable for the r ...

who erected a pair of obelisks to define the extents of the new district. It was Abdülmecid I who ordered the construction of the Neo-Classical Teşvikiye Police Station and the Neo-Baroque

Teşvikiye Mosque The Teşvikiye Mosque is a neo-baroque structure located in the Teşvikiye neighbourhood of Şişli district in Istanbul, Turkey. History The mosque was originally commissioned in 1794 by Sultan Selim III, but most of the current mosque that s ...

to create a proper district, encouraging Constantinopians to settle in the area (hence the name ''Teşvikiye'' which means ''Encouragement'' in

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...

). The word ''Nişantaşı'' means "Target Stone" in

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

. Target stones were erected in the Ottoman period to mark the records of Ottoman archers including sultans. Shaped like small

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...

s with Ottoman Turkish inscriptions on them, some of these target stones still serve as monuments to Nişantaşı's past, their inscriptions recording when a particular arrow was fired and by whom as well as recording the distance it flew. Following the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...

of 1912–1913, many

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...

from Macedonia, especially

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

(''Selânik'', which was an Ottoman metropolis until 1912) settled in the Nişantaşı quarter of Istanbul, including the family of the famous Turkish poet

Nâzım Hikmet Mehmed Nâzım Ran (15 January 1902 – 3 June 1963), Note: 403 Forbidden error received 10 October 2022. commonly known as Nâzım Hikmet (), was a Turkish-Polish poet, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, director, and memoirist. He was ...

. Apart from the

, the quarter also had sizeable

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

and

Levantine Levantine may refer to: * Anything pertaining to the Levant, the region centered around modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, including any person from the Levant ** Syria (region), corresponding to the modern countries of the Lev ...

communities. In 1923 many Dönme moved to the area from

after the

Greek-Turkish population exchange The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey ( el, Ἡ Ἀνταλλαγή, I Antallagí, ota, مبادله, Mübâdele, tr, Mübadele) stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at ...

. Arriving in Nişantaşi, they occupied abandoned Greek houses. A few of their descendants still live in Nişantaşi where they are a tight knit community.

Attractions

On Valikonaği Caddesi stands the home built for his family by the early Republican architect

Vedat Tek Mehmet Vedat Tek (1873–1942) was a Turkish architect who was one of the leading figures of the First Turkish National Architectural Movement. Early life and education Of Cretan Muslim origin, Vedat Tek was born in Istanbul to the governor o ...

in 1913-14. Its facade displays many of the features of the First National Architecture style with which he was associated, including thick lancet windows, tiled panels and protruding Selçuk-style stone roundels. Built in 1853 on the site of an older mosque, the elegant Tesvikye Mosque was once associated with the Dönmes who had arrived from

Salonica Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

(now Thessaloniki) during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The founder of

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

Ahmet Ertegun Ahmet Ertegun (, Turkish spelling: Ahmet Ertegün; ; – December 14, 2006) was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist. Ertegun was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records. He discovered and ch ...

's funeral was held here in 2006. Two target stones dating back to the late 18th and early 19th century stand in the mosque's courtyard. In 1979 the editor of the Miliyet newspaper, Abdi İpekci, was shot and killed near Tesvikye Mosque by

Mehmet Ali Ağca Mehmet Ali Ağca (; born 9 January 1958) is a Turkish assassin who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on 1 February 1979, and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981, after escaping from a Turkish prison. After serving ...

, the man who went on to shoot at

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

. A memorial statue marks the spot. The Park Hyatt Hotel is housed in the Maçka Palas building which started life as an apartment block designed by Guilio Mongeri in 1922. At different times it was lived in by the third Turkish president Celal Bayer, the poet and politician Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan and

Turgay Şeren Turkay Sabit Şeren (15 May 1932 – 7 July 2016) was a Turkish football player, who was a one-time goalkeeper of Galatasaray. He played for Galatasaray between 1947 and 1966 and was capped 52 times for Turkey, including two matches at the 19 ...

, a goalkeeper for the

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club'') is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Most notable for its association football department, the club also consists of various other de ...

football team.

Educational Facilities

Maçka Technical High School (Maçka Teknik Lisesi) was originally designed by Giulio Mongeri and constructed by the

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

to serve as their country's new

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

in Istanbul.Emporis: Maçka Technical High School
/ref> However, when

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

became Turkey's new capital in 1923, it was donated to the Turkish Republic. Building work was not completed until 1970 when it was turned into a school. There are three public primary schools on Nişantaşı Avenue (Nilüfer Hatun Primary School, Sait Çiftçi Primary School, and Maçka Primary School) and two public high schools (Rüştü Uzel High School, Nuri Akın High School). The prestigious Feyziye Mektepleri Vakfı Işık Okulları (Feyziye Schools Foundation Işık Private Schools) is a private school incorporating a

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

and

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

. It was established in 1885 as the Şemsi Efendi Primary School in the Ottoman city of Selânik (

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 Surname Law (Turkey), until 1934 ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish Mareşal (Turkey), field marshal, Turkish National Movement, re ...

, the founder and first

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

of the

Republic of Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, was a student of the Şemsi Efendi Primary School.) Several faculty buildings of

Istanbul Technical University Istanbul Technical University ( tr, İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, commonly referred to as ITU or The Technical University) is an international technical university located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is the world's third-oldest technical university ...

(ITU) and

Marmara University Marmara University ( Turkish: ''Marmara Üniversitesi'') is a public university in Istanbul, Turkey. The university is named after the Sea of Marmara and was founded as a university in 1982. However, it was created in 1883 under the name of ''H ...

are also located here. The ITU is housed in what was once the Maçka Barracks designed by members of the

Balyan family The Balyan family ( hy, Պալեաններ; tr, Balyan ailesi or ''Palyan ailesi'') was a prominent Armenian family in the Ottoman Empire consisting of court architects in the service of Ottoman sultans and other members of the Ottoman dynast ...

of architects.

Distance to Major Districts

* Taksim: 10 minutes *

: 10 minutes *

Kadıköy Kadıköy (), known in classical antiquity and during the Roman and Byzantine eras as Chalcedon ( gr, Χαλκηδών), is a large, populous, and cosmopolitan district in the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey, on the northern shore of the Sea of ...

: 25 Minutes *

Bakırköy Bakırköy is a neighbourhood, municipality and district on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. The quarter is densely populated, has a residential character and is inhabited by an upper middle class population. The municipality of Bakırköy ...

: 30 Minutes *

Levent Levent is a neighbourhood and one of the main business districts of Istanbul, Turkey, located on the European side of the city. It is a part of the municipality of Beşiktaş and is situated to the north of the Golden Horn, at the western sh ...

: 20 Minutes *

Sarıyer Sarıyer () is the northernmost district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European side of the city. It consists of the neighbourhoods of Rumelifeneri, Tarabya, Yeniköy, İstinye, Emirgan and Rumelihisarı. Sarıyer also administers the Black Sea c ...

: 30 Minutes * New Airport: 40 Minutes

Image gallery

File:Tesvikiye, Istanbul 03.jpg, alt=Maçka Palas (1922) designed by Giulio Mongeri houses the Emporio Armani, Armani Café and Gucci stores., '' Maçka Palas'' (1922) designed by Giulio MongeriEmporis: Maçka Palas
/ref> houses the Park Hyatt Hotel,

Emporio Armani Giorgio Armani S.p.A. (), commonly known as Armani, is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in Milan by Giorgio Armani which designs, manufactures, distributes and retails haute couture, ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes, accessories, and ...

, Armani Café and

Gucci Gucci (, ; ) is an Italian high-end luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty, Inc. for fragrance ...

stores. File:Tesvikiye, Istanbul 01.jpg,

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

style apartment buildings in Teşvikiye, Nişantaşı. File:Tesvikiye, Istanbul 02.jpg,

style apartment buildings in Teşvikiye, Nişantaşı. File:Nişantaşı Abdi İpekçi Avenue.jpg, Abdi İpekçi Avenue in Nişantaşı. File:Nişantaşı The St. Regis İstanbul Hotel.jpg, St. Regis Hotel in Teşvikiye, Nişantaşı. File:Nisantasi.jpg, Buildings in Teşvikiye, Nişantaşı. File:Tesvikiye Mosque, Istanbul 07.jpg,

in Teşvikiye, Nişantaşı. File:İzmir Palas Nişantaşı.jpg, İzmir Palace in Nişantaşı. File:Tesvikiye Mosque, Istanbul 02.jpg, One of the two archery stones in the courtyard of

in Teşvikiye, Nişantaşı. File:Abdi İpekçi Anıtı (2).JPG, Abdi İpekçi monument in Nişantaşı. File:Nişantaşı.jpg, alt=Nişantaşı Streets, Park Hyatt Hotel, Maçka

References