That noise on the horizon ?
Tarlabaşı is a ramshackle neighborhood in the heart of Istanbul’s European side. It hasn’t always been. Formerly, this cosmopolitan neighborhood -its residents were predominantly Greeks and Armenians – was one of Istanbul’s nicest ones. A dramatic series of events from 1942 to 1974 resulted in almost all of these residents fleeing or being forced to leave. And Tarlabaşı began its uninterrupted slide into pauperization.
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![« Nobody can take Tarlabaşı from us »
The construction site of Tarlabaşı 360, an urban renewal project in Istanbul, is enclosed by a corrugated metal fence decorated with numerous graffiti. An disadvantaged and vulnerable population lives in the rundown neighborhood of Tarlabaşı which is very close to Taksim Square and to Istiklal Caddesi, Istanbul’s shopping and leisure pedestrian heart. The value of land in Tarlabaşı has significantly appreciated and it is sought after by the Beyoğlu Municipality and real-estate developers. Tarlabaşı 360 aims to transform the area into a neighborhood of up-scale apartments and offices for the middle and upper-middle classes, with hotels, boutiques, restaurants as well as tourist residences. Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/01-6005-Grafitti-Personne-ne-pourra-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![Turquie, D'ou vient ce bruit à l'horizon](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/02-2014-6914cité-interdite-2-copy-2.jpg)
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![A partial view of the urban renewal project Tarlabaşı 360 construction site as seen from the opposite side of Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Behind the green building can be seen the facade of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The first phase of this project involves 20,000 sq.m. of land on which there were 278 buildings divided into 9 blocks. More than 500 families were evicted. 210 of these buildings were classified, yet the construction company demolished some of them. Theoretically, their Art Deco facades will be identically rebuilt. Theoretically… Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Vue-du-chantier-2014-copy-1.jpg)
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![The front entrance of the Tarlabaşı 360 construction site on the corner of Tarlabaşı Boulevard and Sakız Ağacı Sokak. The billboard (Turkey’s President Erdoğan shaking hands with the Mayor of Istanbul) proudly announces that Tarlabaşı 360 received the Urban Renewal Prize in March 2013. This prize was awarded by the President’s political party, the AKP. GAP Inşaat, the company constructing the project, is a subsidiary of Çalık Holding whose President and CEO at the time was Erdoğan’s son-in-law. Istanbul, August 2014.](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/07-Tarlabasi-Bulvari-août-2014-copy-1.jpg)
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![The most destitute of the almost 500,000 Syrian refugees in Istanbul are the latest population to come to Tarlabaşı, the neighborhood of the underprivileged. A court ruling had halted construction work, and in April 2014, Syrian families had started living in the half-demolished buildings. No water, no electricity, no windowpanes. The families took advantage of the holes made in the metal fencing by prostitutes and small-time dealers to access the construction site](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/09-Petites-réfugiées-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![A stuffed toy lies in a street in Tarlabaşı. In the years before the first expropriations in 2011, garbage collecting had stopped being regularly done in Tarlabaşı. This was part of a campaign by the Beyoğlu Municipality to let the neighborhood deteriorate and to stigmatize its residents. The aim was to encourage acceptance by the public of the radical transformation to the neighborhood that the urban renewal project Tarlabaşı 360 intended accomplishing. Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/10-5939-Lapin-peluche-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![« The New Tarlabaşı means hope»
One of the billboards advertising the Tarlabaşı 360 urban renewal project. These billboards decorate the length of the construction site’s frontage along Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Tarlabasi-4-2014-copy-1.jpg)
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![İrfan (« wisdom »), a Yezidi Kurd Syrian refugee, arrived alone in Istanbul when he was 14 years old. He is now 16 and a little lucky. He works, albeit undeclared and only occasionally, in the tourist industry, and along with other young refugees, he found decent, if Spartan, housing with Engin who has transformed his one-bedroom apartment in Tarlabaşı into a dormitory of sorts for young, isolated refugees. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/13-Irfan-2015-copy-1.jpg)
![The back entrance of the Tarlabaşı 360 construction site on Kara Kurum Sokak. In the background, the dilapidated buildings along Çukur Sokak. In 2011, Amnesty International requested the Beyoğlu Municipality to stop its forced evictions and expropriations that had often resulted in making people homeless and practice procedures respectful of owners and tenants’ rights. Many owners and tenants have brought cases before the courts, including the European Court of Human Rights. The Turkish Council of State (the Danıştay) ruled in June 2015 that the expropriations had not been performed in accordance with the law. This was an important victory for owners. Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/14-Entrée-arrière-chantierTarlabasi-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![« Tarlabaşı is a dead end»
A graffiti in Çukur Sokak on the metal fencing of the Tarlabaşı 360 construction site.](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/15-6006-Tarlabasi-graffiti-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![Emre, 21 years old. When he was 14, this young Kurd from Ağrı (Eastern Anatolia) had a big fight with his father and ran away to Istanbul and to Tarlabaşı where he had friends. Emre is troubled and winds up having problems with everyone: his family, his friends, his roommates, the police, the Tarlabaşı delinquents, his employers. Pessimistic, at drift in his life and in Tarlabaşı ever since the building where he lived was expropriated, Emre has tattooed a black cloud with big, black raindrops falling. Istanbul, June 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/16-Emre-copy-1.jpg)
![Gül (« rose »), 60 years old, at home beneath a portrait of the prophet Ali. The State and city authorities undertook to systematically stigmatize the Tarlabaşı neighborhood and the people living there in order to justify its gentrification with no regard for social justice. The only thing that mattered was “regenerating” this seedy, dangerous neighborhood full of prostitutes, delinquents, junkies. The fact that the majority of Tarlabaşı’s residents are families whose only fault is being poor was intentionally not dwelled upon. Istanbul, July 2015
Turquie, D'ou vient ce bruit à l'horizon](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/17-Gül-prophète-Ali-2015-copy-2.jpg)
![Engin (« immense »), 54 years old, has lived in Tarlabaşı since 1970 and is unemployed after having held umpteen jobs in his life. He provides lodging to young Syrian Kurd refugees in his rented apartment across from the Tarlabaşı 360 site furnished with a television set, a few thin mattresses and cushions, plus three posters (two Kurdish heroes and Atatürk). Under a portrait of film director Yilmaz Güney, Engin says, “Urban renewal will rid the neighborhood of its undesirable elements. Two out of every three persons here have something to hide”. Engin is among the Tarlabaşı residents who look favorably upon the Tarlabaşı 360 project. He does not seem to realize that for the Municipality, he counts among the people to be replaced. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/18-Engin-2015-copy.jpg)
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![Turquie, D'ou vient ce bruit à l'horizon](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/20-Tarlabasi-5-2014-copy-2.jpg)
![« The New Tarlabaşı respects everyone»
One of the billboards advertising the Tarlabaşı 360 urban renewal project. These billboards run the length of the construction site’s frontage along Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/21-Yeni-Tarlabasi-1-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![Emre, 21 years old, ran away from his family in Eastern Turkey. Underpriviliged people gravitate to Tarlabaşı where the dilapidated state of housing keeps rents cheap. Since he was evicted from a building expropriated for the Tarlabaşı 360 renewal project, Emre has no permanent address and gets along by staying a few nights at a time with different friends. He has just quit his sales job but wants to resist getting involved in drug-linked activities - the lot of many unskilled, undereducated young men in Tarlabaşı. The graffiti behind him says, “Tarlabaşı is a dead end”. Istanbul, June 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/22-Emre-2015-copy-1.jpg)
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![Özge (“different”) 35 years old, has no permanent address ever since the building where she shared an apartment with girlfriends was expropriated for the urban renewal project Tarlabaşı 360. She sleeps here and there, her last-ditch solution being Gezi Park which is next to Tarlabaşı. This endearing female transgender sells her body on Tarlabaşı Boulevard in front of the construction site’s fencing, after having lost several jobs washing dishes in restaurants. Her sexual orientation offended clients. She has no idea where she’ll move to when there will be no place for her anymore in a gentrified Tarlabaşı. When her spirits are low, she says a client will have killed her by then. Özge dreams of moving to Sweden. “In Paris or Amsterdam, prostitutes have rights. Not here.” Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24-9856-Özge-2015-copy-1.jpg)
![Şilan (“wild rosebush”), 29 years old, in Eski Çeşme Sokak. Rejected by her family, Şilan cut her arm badly when she was 21 and high on drugs. As self-punishment. “What I do is a sin.” Şilan has been a hayat kadını (« woman of life ») for nine years. She is one of the neighborhood prostitutes who have started using the gutted buildings in the Tarlabaşı 360 construction site for their work. Much more dangerous than seedy hotels, but free. Şilan would like to believe the advertising slogan for the urban renewal project “The New Tarlabaşı respects everyone”. Şilan was no longer in Tarlabaşı in June 2015. No one could tell me what had become of her. Istanbul, August 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/25-Silan-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![Gül (60 years old) and her husband Sedat came 37 years ago from Gaziantep (Southeastern Turkey) and raised six children in Tarlabaşı. They have always been tenants of the same apartment which dilapidated steadily through lack of upkeep, just like their three-story building. Towards the end of the ‘70s, their old Armenian landlord stopped coming by to collect the rent. The couple paid no rent for years. Then the State, through a foundation, began managing the “abandoned” building, as it does for many buildings in Tarlabaşı. Gül and Sedat have a lease but are worried. They know that, lease or no lease, the Beyoğlu municipality ignored the rights of the tenants evicted for the first phase of the urban renewal project, Tarlabaşı 360. Very often, the evictions were performed without sufficient notice (sometimes just one week!) or a realistic proposal for alternative housing. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/26-Gül-et-son-mari-2015-copy-1.jpg)
![Gül (“rose”) is 60 years old, has raven-black hair and her youthful silhouette. Gül and her husband Sedat live near the Tarlabaşı 360 construction site in a decrepit building declared abandoned and consequently managed by a State foundation. Gül has witnessed the neighborhood’s decaying and hopes that it will become cleaner and safer thanks to the urban renewal project. Her other hope is that there will be more work for young men like her youngest son. Gül finds it unjust that many young men who should be married and starting families cannot because they lack the financial means to do so. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/27-Gül-2015-copy-1.jpg)
![Fecri, 36 years old, has lived in Tarlabaşı for 25 years, minus five years in Holland. Fecri, who speaks Dutch and English, came back in 2013 and is a street vendor selling stuffed mussels at the foot of the Galata Tower. A few months ago, with the slightly enigmatic help of an American friend, Fecri bought a three-story building in Hüseyin Ağa Kireçhane Sokak, located a stone’s throw from the Tarlabaşı 360 urban renewal project. He is currently having the building refurbished and plans to make it into a residence for tourists. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/28-Fecri-2-copy-1.jpg)
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![The majority of Tarlabaşı residents are Kurdish villagers who, in the city, became part of the poor working class. Like Masum, 53 years old. His retirement pension is insufficient, probably around 1000TL ($350), the minimum monthly pension in Turkey. Masum has consequently become part of the grey economy, i.e. undeclared work, a widespread phenomenon in Tarlabaşı. He walks the neighborhood streets with a shooting game he made for children. He calls it his ekmek teknisi (his “meal ticket”). Masum considers the advertising slogan for Tarlabaşı 360, “In the New Tarlabaşı, there is a place for everyone”, a lie. Istanbul, August 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/31-7039-Masum-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![One can almost taste de feeling of privation, negligence and suspicion permeating Tarlabaşı and the streets around the Tarlabaşı 360 urban renewal project’s construction site. Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/32-6666-Chienne-errante-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![On the wall of a gutted building in the Tarlabaşı 360 construction site, stencil graffiti declares:
Dert çekmeye gidiyorum (“I’m headed for suffering”). Istanbul, April 2014](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/33-7032-Grafuttu-souffrance-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![Engin (« immense »), 54 years old, on the terrace of the building he lives in on Taksim Yağhanesi Sokak. Originally from Bingöl (Southeast Turkey), he’s been in Tarlabaşı since 1970 and is now out of work after having held umpteen jobs in his life. Five to eight young Syrian Kurd refugees can always be found in his 4th-floor rudimentary apartment. He says he “helps them out”. The clothes hanging on the clothesline are theirs. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/34-Engin-sur-la-terrasse-2015copy-1.jpg)
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![In August 2014, the Syrian refugee families had been chased from these gutted buildings, in danger of buckling, where they had taken shelter. Bulldozers then came back to further demolish these shells and permanently discourage all desire to use them to live in. Istanbul, August 2014.](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/36-7034-Ruines-dabri-2014-copy-1.jpg)
![Gutted buildings whose facades are classified on the corner of Eski Çesme Sokak and Sakiz Ağacı Sokak. The first demolitions began in early 2012. The construction site has transformed a section of Tarlabaşı into a ghost town. Shrouded in their poignant old glory and despite their dangerous condition, these buildings are haunted by prostitutes and small-time drug dealers to conceal their activities and by the most destitute Syrian refugees desperate for any kind of shelter. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/37-Ville-fantôme-2015-copy-1.jpg)
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![An abandoned love chair on Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Can happiness be founded on other people’s misery? In June 2015, the 6th Chamber of the Council of State (the Danıştay) declared that the expropriations and evictions performed for the Tarlabaşı 360 urban renewal project had not been carried out in conformity with the law. This same judgement ordered a halt to construction. But GAP Inşaat ignored the ruling and did not cease construction. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/40-9551-Divan-abandonné-2015-copy-1.jpg)
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![A female transgender prostitute tries to attract clients on Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Starting in the 1960s, Tarlabaşı began to draw people socially and economically “on the fringes”. Tarlabaşı is the about the only neighborhood in central Istanbul that will rent to gays and transgender people without too much discrimination. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/42-9547-Prostituée-transgenre-2015-copy-1.jpg)
![A man cleaning mussels in Doğramacı Şakir Sokak. Poverty and neediness in Tarlabaşı encourage recourse to the grey economy. Selling stuffed mussels has become a way to earn money for many poverty-stricken residents. Stuffed with more bread than mussel, they are sold by street vendors posted on tourist sites and busy streets for the equivalent of 15 to 80 cents apiece. On a good night, the vendor can sell 150 mussels. But the usual number is from 60 to 80. Istanbul, June 2015.](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/43-9324-Homme-nettoyant-des-moules-2015-copy-1.jpg)
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![A street in Tarlabaşı. Tarlabaşı is a textbook case of how gentrification works. The urban fabric of a neighborhood is remodeled through the destruction of the dilapidated, decaying old stock, and then extensively reconstructed. In the process, the neighborhood’s social fabric is “regenerated” since its residents cannot afford to remain in their renovated neighborhood, designed for affluent classes. They are forced to move away, towards Istanbul’s outskirts for the majority. They lose in the process their jobs and their network of friends, neighbors and relations. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/45-9625-Garçon-aux-baskets-orange-2015-copy-1.jpg)
![A female transgender prostitue on Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Every night, female transgender prostitutes are at work on the boulevard, a six-lane “boulevard” of dense traffic, among the cacophony of vehicles and of indifferent or mocking masculine stares. Istanbul, July 2015](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/46-9357-Prostituée-transgenre-2015copy-1.jpg)
![Keresteci Recep Sokak. Night accentuates the ghostly aura of Tarlabaşı. Tarlabaşı 360 has been seriously delayed because of the more than 500 lawsuits brought before the courts by architect and urban planner federations, NGOs, and residents expropriated or evicted with no respect for their rights. Originally planned for completion by March 2016, not one new building was under construction in July 2015. Istanbul, July 2015
Turquie, D'ou vient ce bruit à l'horizon](http://frances-dal-chele.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/47-0492-Keresteci-Recep-Sokak-2015-copy-2.jpg)
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