Sadıkbey: Yalıların Dili Olsa covers the glorious era before surrendering to profit-driven development.
Before the Republic, Turks and Jews lived around Kemeraltı. After the Republic, some doctors, lawyers, merchants, and high-level bureaucrats, who formed İzmir's new bourgeois class, settled along the coastline between Karantina and Güzelyalı, particularly in the Sadıkbey neighborhood. The majority of these families were the owners of the mansions and seaside residences they inhabited. The number of tenants living in the neighborhood was not high. Today, that old Sadıkbey is gone... Those old seaside residences are gone... Those old families are gone, too... Sadıkbey is now a neighborhood without identity... A faded photograph... An image beginning to be erased from memory... A history on the verge of being forgotten... A longing for the old residents... And for the new residents, nothing more than the name of a tram stop... The purpose of writing this book is to contribute to the formation of urban memory by utilizing photographs, memoirs, and supporting documents; to keep alive the history of a neighborhood that is beginning to be forgotten; and to remind future generations of this dramatic transformation.
The second edition of the book Sadıkbey: Yalıların Dili Olsa was published by Yakın Publications in 2023.