Achrafieh

Achrafieh (Arabic: الأشرفية) is an upper-class area in eastern Beirut, Lebanon. In strictly administrative terms, the name refers to a sector (secteur) centred on Sassine Square, the highest point in the city, as well as a broader quarter (quartier). In popular parlance, however, Achrafieh refers to the whole hill that rises above Gemmayze in the north and extends to Badaro in the south, and includes the Rmeil quarter.

Although there are traces of human activity dating back to the Neolithic era, the modern suburb was heavily settled by Greek Orthodox merchant families from Beirut's old city in the mid-nineteenth century. The area contains a high concentration of Beirut's Ottoman and French Mandate era architectural heritage. During the civil war, when Beirut was separated into eastern and western halves by the Green Line, Achrafieh changed from a mostly Christian residential area (compared to bustling, cosmopolitan Hamra, in Ras Beirut) to a commercial hub in its own right. In the early 2000s, the area became a focal point of the city's real estate boom.

The etymology of Achrafieh most likely relates to the steep hill that defines the area, although this is contested. The area centers on Beirut's highest point, the hill of Saint Dimitrios, and comprises neighbourhoods that slope towards the port in the north, and to what was once a vast pine forest, to the south. The name long predates the present administrative divisions of the Municipality of Beirut, and first appears to designate a suburb in Salih bin Yahya's History of Beirut, in the early 1400s. The writer Elias Khoury recalls how the area was called the "little mountain" (al-jabal as-saghir) by locals, as if it were a small outpost of nearby Mount Lebanon on the coast.

Administratively, Achrafieh today designates a quarter of the city, made up of 9 sectors (Achrafieh, Adlieh, Corniche el-Nahr, Furn el-Hayek, Ghabi, Hotel Dieu, Mar Mitr, Nasra, Sioufi). However, Saint Nicolas and Sursock Street, which are strictly within the quarter of Rmeil, have always been considered part of Achrafieh by local residents and real estate developers alike. Similarly, certain southern parts of the administrative quarter, such as Adlieh, are generally not considered to be part of the area. Achrafieh is therefore defined somewhat nebulously and synonymously with East Beirut.

Achrafieh comprises residential areas characterized by narrow winding streets and cafes along with more commercial areas, with large apartment and office buildings and major arteries between central Beirut and the north-eastern suburbs. The following neighbourhoods are counted within Achrafieh:

There are traces of human activity on the slopes of Achrafieh in antiquity. The area included a necropolis, with archeological findings now in the National Museum of Beirut, and a possible shrine around a water spring at what is today Saint Demetrios Church.

After several centuries of being a small, walled city, Beirut expanded rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century, as a result of increased trade and immigration, including refugees from inter-communal conflicts in Mount Lebanon and inland Syria. As the old city became increasingly cramped and overpopulated, many Greek Orthodox trading families relocated from the port into semi-rural eastern areas, where they built spacious villas on the slopes of the hill, with large gardens and views commanding the port. These Orthodox families (including the Bustros, Gebeily, Trad, Tueni, and Sursock) made their money through the silk trade as well as money exchanging and tax collection, and were some of the largest property owners and tax payers in the city in the 1860s and 70s. The Orthodox community's communal institutions followed them. The Greek Orthodox Archbishop's palace was also relocated from the Saint George Cathedral complex in downtown Beirut to the Sursock's neighbourhood overlooking the port. The Ecole des Trois Docteurs, founded in 1835 in the Orthodox Cathedral complex in central Beirut, moved eastward until it found its present location at the bottom of the Accaoui hill.

The first palace was built by Nicolas Sursock, probably on what is now the St Nicolas Stairs, and hosted Russia's Grand Duke Nicholas when he visited Beirut in 1872. Other villas included: Taswinat al-Tueni, a palace built by Georges Tueni in the early 1860s and named for the fence that ringed the extensive grounds; the Fadlallah Bustros Palace, completed around 1863 and now housing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Moussa Sursock's palace, completed around 1870; and Elias Sursock's palace, which hosted General Gouraud during the French Mandate and was demolished in the 1960s. The last major villa was built for Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock in 1912, and upon his death, he left the palace to the Municipality of Beirut as a land grant or waqf, to become what is now the Sursock Museum. These palatial villas remain emblematic of Achrafieh, with one such palace, built for Abdullah Bustros, being sold for $22 million in 2018.