Traveling and Trading thirty-five years, from 54 , 000 people in 1878 to 150 , 000 in 1912.^8 One-
third, 50 , 000 , of the inhabitants were Muslim. By 1923 , Dönme com-
prised as much as one-third of this Muslim population. Thus the city
had the smallest Muslim population of all large Ottoman cities—in Is-
tanbul it was nearly half—and a significant proportion of that popula-
tion was not merely Muslim, but Dönme. Salonika also boasted a large
foreign contingent because many consulates were located there. The city
was undoubtedly oriented toward western and central Europe. The first
rail service to Paris ( 1888 ) preceded rail connection to Istanbul by nearly
a decade ( 1896 ).^9
Late Ottoman Salonika was thus situated at the interstices of cultural,
economic, and religious connections between western Europe (particu-
larly France) and southeastern Europe (the Ottoman Empire). This con-
tributed to new internal linkages and intersections for the city’s people,
who as in other great European cities “found themselves in situations with
unprecedented possibilities for talking, card playing, drinking, clubbing,
or just mixing with relative strangers.”^10 The construction of the modern
port stimulated the proliferation of new places of social exchange in of-
fices, cafés, bars, hotels, and, later, cinemas along the waterfront prom-
enade.^11 Men and women congregated day and night in spacious cafés
or luxury hotel restaurants, where they sat on Viennese chairs at round
marble tables, read Paris or Istanbul or local newspapers, smoked ciga-
rettes, and consumed hors-d’oeuvres, cakes, cheese, and alcohol, while
an orchestra played in the background and other patrons played pool.^12
In the European quarter, Salonikans shopped at branches of Paris, Lon-
don, and Vienna department stores and boutiques, or at the American or
Chinese bazaar.^13 They were not merely engaging in mimicry.^14 Salonika
was not the Paris of the Ottoman Empire; it was a distinct city, where
fountains gushed forth sour cherry juice, an Ottoman favorite, at open-
ing ceremonies; passengers on the Belgian-made tramcars were segregated
by sex;^15 and clocks had two faces, one with Arabic and one with Latin
numerals, simultaneously telling Christian and Islamic time.^16
The cityscape and public institutions of turn-of-the-twentieth-century
Salonika reflected its cosmopolitan inhabitants. One found there a pur-
poseful mixing of baroque, neoclassical, and Islamic architectural styles.
The city boasted modern, hygienic public markets, with Islamic archi-
tectural features, a densely crowded city core, and broad-boulevarded
suburbs with seaside villas that had diverse features taken from western