Making My Way Back to Istanbul

Without jumping into the background of why I'm even thinking about the following, I'm going to begin a stream of consciousness narrative about what I see now as the relationship between historic preservation and urban transformation in Istanbul today. I want to start writing about it by, first, talking about what the relationship between these things is in New York, specifically on the Lower East Side.

As we all know by now, the reason I began even thinking about slumming on the Lower East Side in the late-19th century/early-20th century is because I worked at the Tenement Museum. What I saw in the three years I worked there and the six years since is a massive transformation of a neighborhood from dilapidated, somewhat barren, somewhat "slum-like," ethnically diverse (and non-white) space to a boutique-, bar-, club-, restaurant-strewn "hot spot"populated by a more monied class with the wherewithal and desire to consume the products and signs offered by the neighborhood today. The Lower East Side has become a destination for international "cool," a place that allows one to self-identify as hip, artsy, an insider, and young. It's also a remarkably "white" area. I've not done a demographic study (though I should), but there's no doubt that this neighborhood has been gentrified -- been turned over to the gentry -- and that gentrification usually means the displacement of people of color and the replacement of white people, if not an aura of what it means to be "white." (See stuffwhitepeoplelike.com)

How did this happen? I've argued elsewhere on this blog -- and, really, to anyone who will listen -- that one of the culprits is "history." The notion of Lower East Side history -- represented by museums, renovated buildings, kitschy but historically compelling marketing plans, and peddled through the vehicles of nostalgia, family, resistance, art, bohemianism, and authenticity -- has become a tool in the gentrification of the neighborhood. As Christopher Mele put it in the title of his book, this is about "Selling the Lower East Side" by recovering, reconfiguring, and reestablishing a narrative of what it means to live there. In other words, one of the attractions to the Lower East Side and one of the things that makes it pricey and desirable is the fact that it was once home to poverty, suffering, and a passion for survival. (For an ironic twist on this and one that I'll develop further later, check this out: link.)

In picking my dissertation topic, then, I wanted to try to understand where this practice came from. What is this fascination not only with the Lower East Side, but with its poverty, with its supposed romance and authenticity? What makes people with privilege want to spend time in a place that represents the lowest rung on the power ladder of America? I traced this story back to the 19th century, specifically looking at "slumming" as a practice that might be called "urban tourism," which represented the phenomenon of people with privilege visiting the Lower East Side as a site of pleasurable thrills, experimentation, entertainment, authenticity, and consumption. These people who "slummed" used visits as a spectacular performance of their own class, their own respectability, their own access to privilege. In other words, for them, the Lower East Side was "a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." At the same time, their access to it as tourists and thrill-seekers allowed them to demonstrate a cultural cutting-edge amongst their own peers. Having the courage to dip into the world of the dangerous classes and emerge with reputation intact meant one had control of one's image and one was adventurous enough -- nay, MODERN -- enough to be able to negotiate this difference. What's also worth mentioning is the fact that the residents of the Lower East Side recognized this practice and played it up. Indeed, it's the residents of the neighborhood who sold it best. In this world of exchange, it became unclear who was using who, who was defining who. It also ushered in a particularly polyglot modernity, based usefully and insidiously on consumption, on the sale of an image. Very American. Or is it?

This brings me back to Istanbul.

Having come back from a short trip to Istanbul a month ago and having completely lost my heart to that city, I've been trying to figure out a way to get back -- and stay there for a longer period of time. My first attempt to do that is an application for a Fulbright-Hayes Dissertation Research Fellowship, which in a broader way, I probably don't seem like a great candidate for. But I've been doing some research and am beginning to see the narrative I've described above appearing in dramatic and place-specific ways in the historic neighborhoods of Istanbul as well. As the city prepares to be the 2010 European Capital of Culture (at the same time as Turkey continues to bid for inclusion in the EU), Istanbul is in a position of marketing itself to tourists, to consumers, in a way that highlights its uniqueness as a multicultural, predominantly Muslim location, as well as its "Europeanness" and viability as a "European" capital.

Istanbul has employed several strategies to make this happen, to make it marketable. And these have had an impact not only on which neighborhoods are deemed preservable and which are not, but also on the ways in which already-gentrified neighborhoods begin to employ their own histories.

Obviously, this is something I need to sort out more, but as it stands, I'm interested in how the (hi)stories of neighborhood are being used to make decisions about whether or not they will be developed/preserved, highlighted/hidden, and what histories play into these decisions. Are they national histories? Local histories? European-ized histories or Turk-ified histories? And how are these histories highlighted within the neighborhoods themselves? Does this mean more museums for Istanbul? More public discourse around these histories? And who gets to tell the history? And what will it be based upon?

These are important questions in general about how we use the past to move forward. If the past is to be made "usable," how it will it be so? And to what end?