1875 Tünel Opening Highlights Western Power
During the 1800s, this avenue became a pocket of Western influence amidst the Ottoman Empire. It was called Cadde-i Kebir in Turkish and Grande Rue de Pera in French at the time. As visible in the map from 1853, European nations established consulates along the street. French poet, Gérard de Nerval describes the Grand Rue de Pera of 1843 “as resembling Paris: fashionable clothes, laundries, jewellers, sparking display windows, candy shops, English and French hotels, cafés, embassies” (Pamuk, 219).
“In 1869, an imperial decree gave Eugène Henri Gavand a concession for a period of 42 years to construct and operate a subway system between Karakoy and Pera” (Zeynep, 96), as an effort to facilitate the Westerners’ connection to the city. Gavand, a French engineer, modelled his construction on London's Underground and Lyon's Funicular.
A Levant Herald account of the opening of the Tünel from illustrates the Western claim over this space. Gavand and his team had been granted the permission to drastically shape the capital. The Tünel construction marked the birth of the Istanbul subway, and in this way, Grand Rue de Pera provided the site for a historic event which contributed to the image of western modernity being the superior and more progressive culture.
“Power belonged to the English financiers and, as the tone of the speakers indicated, the ‘common interest’ was that of the Europeans residing in the capital: “Istanbul’s European community loved this element of ‘progress and civilisation’” (Zeynep, 97).