The City on Screen: Why Does a Neighbourhood Become a Scenic Backdrop?

In conjunction with the filming of the series Haysiyet in Balat, Seyhan Akıncı interviewed the cast for Milliyet Pazar, reserving for me an inquiry into the very soul of the neighbourhoods. The core of the matter was essential: why do television series constantly return to the same streets?

Our itinerary commenced in Balat. Etymologically, the toponym traces back, by way of the Byzantine palace on the Golden Horn, to the Palatine, the Roman hill that bore the imperial residence and gave us the word palatium. Yet, in the modern urban fabric, scarcely an echo of that palatial grandeur survives. Perhaps its magnetism lies precisely in this dichotomy: narrow alleys that refused to yield to the verticality of modern concrete, preserving an intimately human scale and organically offering the ideal scenic backdrop for unpretentious narratives. This crossroads, which in 1492 also welcomed the Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain, remained a multilingual and multiconfessional microcosm for centuries, a transitional haven that, until recently, sheltered new arrivals to Istanbul before they relinquished their place to subsequent waves of migration.

How does the coexistence of mosque, church, and synagogue in Kuzguncuk intertwine with the neighbourhood solidarity depicted in Perihan Abla, a solidarity now eroded by relentless urban speculation? For what reason does Çengelköy’s bazaar, despite its location on the Bosphorus, turn its back to the sea, enclosing itself like a jewel box? And why does the luxurious yalı that served as the backdrop for Gümüş bear the name of the wealthy merchant Abud Efendi, whose han in Mahmutpaşa subsequently became the setting for Kemal Sunal’s Yoksul?

From these cascading premises emerged a comprehensive disquisition, ranging from the Çengelköy of author Kemalettin Tuğcu to the Suriye Pasajı.

The final stage was the yalı that immortalised the series Aşk-ı Memnu. Sheltered by the woodland to its rear and the terraced gardens that blanket the entire slope, it stands as one of the exceedingly rare Bosphorus mansions to have preserved its architectural integrity, and moreover, unlike the vast majority of adjacent residences, it is constructed not of timber, but of masonry. Its first owners were in all likelihood the Frenkyans, an affluent Ottoman-Armenian family hailing from Kayseri. The exhaustive details of this inquiry can be found in Seyhan Akıncı’s extensive reportage, also featured on the CNN Türk website.