The Bosphorus - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 443

here and the village was called after the saint as late as the sixteenth
century; the modern Greek church preserves this dedication.
On the main street in Ortaköy there is an ancient hamam which
appears to have been wholly overlooked by writers in modern times;
it was built by Sinan for a certain Hüsrev Kethüda. This has recently
been restored and now houses a café. The interior is curious and
unlike any other existing Sinan hamam. From a camekân of the usual
form (though confused by a modern gallery), one enters a rather large
soğukluk consisting of a central area in two unequal bays each covered
by a cradle-vault; at one end are the lavatories, at the other a bathing
cubicle. From the central area one enters the hararet which, instead of
being the usual large domed cruciform room, consists of four domed
areas of almost equal size; the first two communicate with each other
by a wide arch and here, instead of the central göbektaşı, there is a
raised marble sofa or podium against one wall and with larger domes
than those in the sofa-rooms; these serve as bathing cubicles. There is
also another cubicle, cradle-vaulted, which is entered from the sofa-
room. An arrangement of this general type is seen in a number of the
older and smaller hamams, but here, where the area is large enough,
the reason for it is not apparent. The bath is double, the women's
section being exactly like the men's.
There is also at Ortaköy a very striking mosque on a little
promontory at the water's edge; Arseven picturesquely says that to
one sailing up the straits from the Marmara “it seems to be placed
here like a Maşallah that wards of the evil eye from the Bosphorus”!
It was built in 1854, on the site of an earlier mosque, by Sultan
Abdül Mecit and its architect was Nikoğos Balyan, who built the
Dolmabahçe mosque and palace. But it is a much better building
than those; although the style as usual is hopelessly mixed, there is
a genuinely baroque verve and movement in the undulating walls of
the tympana between the great dome arches.
On the shore road near the mosque there is a Greek church
dedicated to St. Phocas. The church was built in 1856, but the parish
undoubtedly dates back to the Byzantine period. One block farther
along the road and on the same side we see the Etz Ahayim (Tree
of Life) Synagogue. The original synagogue here dates back to the