At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ottoman governor Azmi Bey ordered the creation of a straight road linking Tripoli with the railway station and the seafront. The resulting thoroughfare became known as Azmi Street.
Read MoreFahim Café is a well-known popular café associated with Tall Square. Its presence became part of the square’s social identity over the course of roughly a century.
Read MoreAl Tall Al Olya, the old hilltop café in Tell Al Raml, has offered Tripolitans an outdoor place of respite since 1870. Its garden became part of the city’s everyday social life. Political and intellectual discussions once flourished beneath its trees, and gatherings there helped give rise to protests and public movements. The café also […]
Read MoreTripoli’s municipal building forms an important part of the city’s identity. The old square in front of it creates a distinctive urban setting, with the municipal fountain occupying the center of the space.
Read MoreCaesar Nawfal’s palace was built at the beginning of the twentieth century to a design by an Italian architect. Its later uses followed several phases of Tripoli’s modern social history. During the French Mandate it housed the Casino de Tripoli and served for years as a club for French officers. In the 1960s, it was […]
Read MoreMansheya began as the garden adjoining Caesar Nawfal’s palace, west of Tall Square. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the palace’s heirs gave the garden to the municipality, allowing it to become a public park. During the French Mandate, the municipality maintained the grounds and enclosed them with a fence. The park became a […]
Read MoreThe Ottomans built Al Hamidiya Clock Tower in 1901 in Tripoli’s new central square. It stood opposite the Ottoman Serail, which had been erected earlier and was later demolished during the twentieth century. The tower occupies a base of approximately 24 square meters and rises through five levels. A spiral iron staircase connects the interior […]
Read MoreTall Square emerged in the late nineteenth century as a new center outside the old Mamluk city. Ottoman and European-style buildings expressed the modern ambitions of that period; today, their architecture records an important stage in Tripoli’s development. The square became a busy arrival and departure point for travelers between Tripoli, Beirut and the surrounding […]
Read MoreTall Square and the streets around it form downtown Tripoli. The district lies between the old city to the east and the modern expansion to the west, linked through Banks Street, the beginning of Azmi Street and the road to El Mina. Its wider boundaries extend toward Abdul Hamid Karami, or Al Noor, Square in […]
Read MoreThe church of the Monastery of Saint Francis of Assisi is known as Saint Anthony of Padua, or Mar Antonios Al Badwani. It was built at the end of the eighteenth century and belongs to the Franciscan Fathers. Tripoli was among the first cities in the East to receive the Franciscans, whose presence in the […]
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