Takh-el-Kale area - Problems

For the neighbors of Takh-el-Kale and close areas (Thiseos, Agios Ioannis, Irakleous...)

As you know, various initiatives have been taken from the residents of our area, with the objective to forward the problems that we face to the Municipality for their resolution. It would help a lot if you marked in the below lines any problems you have. Please fill them before Monday 01/06/09, and hour 18.00 p.m. - 19.30 p.m., when some neighbors will collect them. In case you are absent, leave them in your postal box or in some other visible point in your house for their collection.

 

Last street interventios

This is a map with the modifications in the last 40 years aprox. In red are marked the traditional houses demolished. In blue, the empty spaces created. Thiseos was a street with houses at both sides, so the bigger damage to the social life of the street has been done in the lower - east- part of the street.

One more quick conclusion is, to my opinion, that exist enough parking space for the residents to the area, but a right organization is needed.

Narrow street

Thiseos is a street of aproximateky 270 meters legth. The minimun width 2.60 m, in it's east entrance. No, sorry, I think is 2.65 now, two days ago another truck hit the stones on the facade of the house again...

What is this?

This is the sign of the walking path of Nicosia. Most part of Thiseos has it. It's a touristic tour for the visitors to walk the Old City. Do we really want to show them Thiseos...?

Thiseos 2009/2

     

 
     

Thiseos 2009/1

This is what thiseos looks like nowadays:

    

    

A little bit of history

Don't know too much about Thisesos, only what the maps can show and the things the neighbors and the people that used to live in that area say.
This was a street full of live: people walking, children playing, people sitting outside their houses and a communitarian sense of life. Nicosia is just a village, and the people here lived that way

Fifty years ago, the street was full of beautiful houses. You can even find Hani (old hotels in the city, Nicosia is full of them, hinding between her buildings, and the most important, of course, is the Buyuk Han, in the other side of the city). It is said, that behind the Pankiprio School, used to be the most beautiful house in old the city. 

In the last years, the interest in the old city has disappeared. The area came into decay, refugees went and came, and the area was forgotten.

The policy of the Pankiprio is to be able to posses the whole block it stays on. Lots of houses were expropriated and demolished to create a bigger school. Some of them were preserved thanks to the activism of architects and neighbors, the same houses now the Pankiprio is proud of restoring  and showing after so much damage to the area they made (and still do).

 

The Archbishop had similar plans. The properties of them here are multiple, and houses were also destroyed. In the archeological area of Agios Nikolaos, there were three traditional houses, destroyed with the excuse of fixing the ruins of the monastery. Nothing has been done, of course.

 

The municipality has also forgotten about the street. Not interventions here have been done. There are parts of the street with no draining for the rain water; the lighting is deficient and the pavement in very bad conditions.  Health is a serious issue due to the ruins and abandoned houses. 

Lot's of other problems can be add, I'll only point three: The night clubs, the prostitutes in the streets, and the mill functioning inside the city.  

I'll go deep to every one of them with detail in further posts.

Now the situation of the street is close to disaster. Narrow, deficient light, excess of vehicles, trucks, dangerous for pedestrian, health issues, and of course, in an area with a big lack of social services: markets, medical centers, access to transport, parking, ...

   This is going to be a veeeery long blog....