Pera and Galata - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 413

an earlier house on this site on 30 October 1762, as noted in a plaque
on the façade: next to it are the arms of the Compte de Saint Priest
and of the Bourbons.
We retrace our steps to Galata Kulesi Sokağı, which after a few steps
brings us to Bankalar Caddesi, formerly known as Voyvoda Caddesi.
The present name of the avenue comes from the several banks that
were built along it in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The
most famous of these is the Osmanlı Bankası, the Ottoman Bank,
the huge building that dominates the south side of the avenue to our
left, founded in 1856.
PERŞEMBE PAZAR SOKAĞI
We now cross the avenue and continue straight ahead on Perşembe
Pazar Sokağı, the Street of the Thursday Market. On the right side of
the street we see two ancient stone houses, and beyond an alley we
see two more of them. These were in times past referred to as Genoese
houses, but they are actually Ottoman structures of the eighteenth
century, one of them inscribed with the date A.H. 1148, or A.D.
1735-6. And indeed the masonry in alternate stone and brick, the
pointed arches of the windows, and the general structure could not
be more characteristic of Turkish building of the period. The dated
building has three storeys, the upper ones projecting in zigzags held
up by corbels, two zigzags in Perşembe Pazar Sokağı but four in the
tiny alley to the right. This is a fine old building and one hopes that
it will be preserved, for at present it and the others on this street are
roughly used and are deteriorating.
ARAP CAMİİ
We take the next turning on the right and soon come to a very
unusual edifice ending in a tall square tower with a pyramidal roof;
this is known in Turkish as Arap Camii, the Mosque of the Arabs,
one of the former Latin churches of Genoese Galata. There are many
baseless legends concerning the origin and history of this church, but
the evidence indicates that it was constructed by the Dominicans
during the years 1323-37 and dedicated to St. Domenic. It seems to
have taken the place of, or included, a chapel dedicated to St. Paul,