A visit to the consulate finally got me the documentation I needed and I am pleased to report that bank access is restored. It was actually my first time ever going to the Istanbul consulate and I have to say I love its design, a kind of brutalist motte-and-bailey castle on a hill.
The consulate was moved here in 2003 from the grand old Palazzo Corpi, which was the first embassy building that the US purchased in Europe, back in 1906 when Istanbul was the Ottoman capital. The Palazzo Corpi is now a fancy hotel called Soho House. It seems to have been good timing for the move as four Al Qaeda truck bombs hit targets in Istanbul including the more exposed British consulate a few months later.
Palazzo Corpi circa 1915:
What I like about the architecture of the new building is that it keeps the main building safe without requiring the super hostile and intimidating blast walls, barbed wire, sandbagged machine gun nests etc. characteristic of consular buildings I've been to in Afghanistan and even Germany. You enter the fairly normal-looking building at the bottom, minded by Turkish guards with body armor but only handguns not crazy-looking weaponry, and after passing through security and walking down a hall, you take an elevator up the main building. Even within the main building, all the consular services are on a lower level with nice little outdoor space that is nonetheless segregated from the rest of the consulate.
I got to cut all the lines because I was the only US citizen, felt like a dick.
Palazzo Corpi circa 1915:
What I like about the architecture of the new building is that it keeps the main building safe without requiring the super hostile and intimidating blast walls, barbed wire, sandbagged machine gun nests etc. characteristic of consular buildings I've been to in Afghanistan and even Germany. You enter the fairly normal-looking building at the bottom, minded by Turkish guards with body armor but only handguns not crazy-looking weaponry, and after passing through security and walking down a hall, you take an elevator up the main building. Even within the main building, all the consular services are on a lower level with nice little outdoor space that is nonetheless segregated from the rest of the consulate.
I got to cut all the lines because I was the only US citizen, felt like a dick.
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