Our Neighborhood: Neapoli Exarchia (19th Century)
Our Neighborhood: Neapoli Exarchia (19th Century)
by Natasa Karapostoli
The Open Psychotherapy Center was founded in February 1980 and was housed in a ground floor apartment, of a typical apartment building, in Neapoli Exarchia. A few years later we moved to the now privately owned (!) neoclassical building, on Charalambi Street again, where we are housed to this day. The choice of a neighborhood in the center of Athens was not accidental. It reflects one of the basic principles of the organization, which were also reflected in the name “Open Psychotherapy Center”:
“Open”, because it is open to everyone, regardless of problems, gender, age, etc. It is enough for someone to come on his/her own. Open, also to ideas, concerns and new applications.
“Psychotherapy”, because the main form of treatment is psychotherapy, mainly group therapy, and any other treatments (e.g. pharmaceuticals) are considered secondary and supportive.
“Center”, because beyond the obvious, it is located in the center of Athens for very specific reasons. The founding group decided that the premises of the Center would not be in some remote suburb, where – to this day – psychiatric clinics are mainly located. In isolated, airy and sunny places, far from the social network, as if they were the air and sun that people with psychological problems lack. Eleni Morarou, in “The Age of Innocence” (Matrix 37) reports that when the founding group began the search for a location “we all agreed that the city center was ideal and meetings began with real estate agents, engineer friends and others. Among the many we saw, we ended up at the location of Charalambi 9-11, in a large (approximately 180 m2) ground floor apartment… I should note here that this apartment was rented for many years by the Civil Engineers Association, whom the tenants evicted because they made a fuss at the General Assemblies. They chose… to rent it to us; who knew…! Another issue that troubled us from an early stage concerned the roommates and neighbors. We were anxious about their reaction to the fact that a psychiatric unit had begun operating in their apartment building, in their neighborhood, in the city center.
After 45 years, we can say with certainty that the project was a success… and that of the neighborhood!
Neapoli Exarchia
We consider ourselves lucky for the initial choice of location by the founding team of the Center. A neighborhood that embraced us, we loved it, we saw it changing, a neighborhood “with personality”! We will look back at its history through various sources, which we managed to locate, either bibliographic or online. Fortunately, the material was sufficient and the philistine reader can refer to it for more information.
19th Century
In 1834, under King Othon, Athens was officially declared the “Royal Seat and Capital” of the newly formed Greek state. It was nothing more than a large village, which after the struggles for independence had been reduced to a mass of ruins and dust. “This is not the glorious and famous Athens. “This is only a huge pile of ruins, a shapeless, monotonous, grayish mass of ash and dust, from which emerge a dozen palm trees and cypresses, the only ones that resist universal desertification,” exclaims the Hellenist Louis Ross in August 1832. Obviously, rapid reconstruction and manpower are required to support it. The workforce consisted mainly of local Athenians who were returning to the city, refugees from other areas of the Ottoman Empire, and many craftsmen from all over Greece and especially the islands. The workers worked under harsh conditions and lived in makeshift structures, in areas close to the center. One of these is Neapolis…
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