Bakirkoy Istanbul

There is little remaining of historical significance in the area: what there is includes a cistern (Fildami Sarnici), a powder house from the 17th century (today used as Yunus Emre Kültür Merkezi in Ataköy), the central mosque and fountain of 1875, an Armenian church and school and the resting place of the Muslim saint Zuhurat Baba, a Turkish soldier who died during the conquest of Constantinople. His resting place is often visited by women on Fridays. The seafront is now a popular location for tea gardens, clubs and restaurants, (although the beaches have not been usable for decades).

Bakirköy became a popular residential area in the late 19th century after the construction of a railroad connection to Istanbul and up until the 1970s was one of the most relaxed and desirable locations in the city. It is still populated by Istanbul's middle-class (trades people, bureaucrats, the retired).

However, since the 1950s Bakirköy has grown considerably and is now heavily populated. It has not suffered the same scale of influx of people that have flooded in from Anatolia into the cheaper buildings in surrounding districts like Bagcilar, and Bakirköy appears tidier than those areas. However it still suffers from congestion and over-crowding. Where once were pleasant buildings in gardens, now are rows of apartment blocks, with gardens around them and not as tall or tightly packed together as the cheaper suburbs but blocks nonetheless. And this growth of course placed severe strain on Bakirköy's infrastructure. It is struggling to catch up and there is now insufficient space for children's playgrounds, parks and so on. Not to speak of car parking.

Some parts of Bakirköy are very pleasant residential areas, particularly the streets from the hospital down towards the sea. The planned satellite town of Ataköy to the west of Bakirköy centre is very tidy indeed, and was probably Turkey's first successful planned development. Ataköy contains much social infrastructure including the Galleria shopping center and yacht marina.

The center of Bakirköy is an important commercial district. There is a huge shopping district (including a number of huge shiny shopping centres as Carousel), a range of cinemas, bars and cafés. At the weekends Bakirköy is heaving with people from the poorer surrounding districts who come in to trawl for bargains in the crowded and dirty streets below the central square (Özgürlük Meydani) and to eat at McDonalds or Burger King. (Bakirköy is not known as the classiest of Istanbul's shopping districts, nor does it have the student/intellectual customer base of Kadiköy or Beyoglu). Boys from the outlying districts enjoy coming to Bakirköy to gawp at girls from Atakoy and the classier neighbourhoods. There is a lot of purse-snatching and pick-pocketing. Now (2006) the council is trying to smarten up the shopping district by pedestrianising more of it and putting in fountains etc.

Bakirköy is easy to reach by public transport; there are dolmusues to Beyoglu throughout the night; there are buses to Mecidiyeköy (although using the E5 by bus is unpleasant indeed: there is a ferry boat service that takes passengers to Bostanci on the Asian side of the city and also to the Adalar (Islands); and the light-railway from the airport to Aksaray runs through here.

Veli Efendi Turkey's largest and oldest Hippodrome, built in 1913 for horse racing is close by. Atatürk International Airport is located here, in the quarter of Yesilköy. A number of five-star hotels have been built around the airport. There is some textile production on the fringes of the area but Bakirköy is residential and commercial rather than industrial.

Istanbul's largest mental hospital is in Bakirköy and the parkland surrounding it is the largest green space in the district.

People believe the underground water of Bakirköy comes from the river Danube.

Being on the Marmara shore Bakirköy is vulnerable to earthquake damage.