Colorful houses

The wooden houses of Balat stand out with their peeling paint in shades of ochre, faded blue, and salmon, leaning into one another along narrow, steep streets. These homes survived the great fires of the nineteenth century that consumed so much of Istanbul, largely because their tight, chaotic placement prevented the flames from jumping easily between structures. They housed generations of Jewish, Greek, and Armenian families who lived here as neighbors long before the demographic shifts of the twentieth century changed the character of the quarter.