Tim Arango
April 6, 2015
ISTANBUL — For more than a century, the grand Italianate mansion that serves as an anchor of this city’s European quarter was a beehive of American diplomacy and espionage. Spies toiled within and met their agents at the bar across the street, reporters dropped by for after-work drinks, and any Turk could walk in off the street to see the latest art exhibition or browse the library. There seemed to be a celebration every night.
“We were partying all the time,” said Ayse Ozakinci, who was a librarian for four decades in the imposing structure, the American Consulate in Istanbul. “There was a festive mood for everyone.”
And then, a dozen years ago, the party stopped and security walls enclosed the mansion, as the threat of terrorism sent American diplomats to a fortified hillside compound on the city’s outskirts, overlooking the Bosporus.
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