A statue full of bullet holes, and a rebuilt city centre that a great many Beirutis have never forgiven.
This square has been the centre of Beirut for a century and a half, and understanding what happened to it is the key to understanding the city.
The martyrs
The square is named for the Lebanese and Syrian nationalists hanged here by the Ottoman authorities on 6 May 1916, during the First World War, for seeking independence.
6 May is still Martyrs’ Day in Lebanon and Syria.
The bronze monument by the Italian sculptor Marino Mazzacurati was installed in 1960.
During the civil war of 1975 to 1990, the Green Line — the front between the mostly Muslim west and mostly Christian east of the city — ran directly through here. The square became a wasteland of ruined buildings and no-man’s land.
The statue was hit repeatedly. When it was restored after the war, the bullet holes were deliberately left in the bronze.
The rebuild
After 1990, the reconstruction of the entire downtown was handed to Solidere — a private joint-stock company established in 1994 and driven by Rafic Hariri, who was prime minister and also its largest shareholder.
Solidere was given extraordinary powers. Property owners in the district were expropriated and compensated in company shares rather than in money or in land. Around 80 per cent of the historic centre’s buildings were demolished. Roman and Phoenician archaeology was excavated at speed and, in the view of many archaeologists, inadequately.
What was built is genuinely handsome: restored Ottoman and French-mandate facades, clean stone streets, and the Beirut Souks.
And it is empty.
Rents were set for international luxury retail. Ordinary Beirutis were priced out of a district that had been the shared commercial heart of the city, the one place where all the sects mixed. Then the 2019 economic collapse removed even the luxury customers, and a great many of the shopfronts have been shuttered since.
Why this matters to a visitor
Because Beirut’s downtown looks like a film set and feels like one, and that is not an accident of taste — it is the outcome of a specific decision about who a rebuilt city is for.
Lebanese people will tell you this, at length and with feeling, and the phrase you will hear is that the city centre was stolen. Whether that is fair is argued about; that the district has no ordinary life in it is not.
The 2019 protests — the thawra — filled this square with hundreds of thousands of people from every sect demanding the removal of the entire political class. For a few weeks the downtown was public again in a way it had not been for thirty years. Then it emptied.
What to see
The statue and its holes.
The Roman cardo maximus and the excavated baths, left open in the middle of the district.
The Grand Serail, the Ottoman barracks of 1853 that is now the prime minister’s office, on the hill above — not open, and visible.
The Clock Tower in Nejmeh Square, and the parliament building beside it. Nejmeh Square has been closed off by security barriers for years and access varies.
Mohammad al-Amin Mosque, the Maronite and Greek Orthodox cathedrals, and the small Roman-era remains between them.
The Egg — the shell of a 1960s cinema, one street away, and the subject of its own page.
Practical
Free and walkable. Security presence is heavy in places and there are barriers around government buildings; do not photograph soldiers or checkpoints.
Downtown is quiet, particularly in the evening. That is the point of the page above.
More Landmarks
Raouché and the Corniche
Two limestone stacks in the sea and five kilometres of seafront promenade — the one place the whole city shares.
Mohammad al-Amin Mosque
A blue-domed mosque of 2008 standing beside a Maronite cathedral, with the grave of the man who built it outside.
The Roman Baths and the Cardo
Berytus was a Roman colony with the greatest law school in the empire, and pieces of it are lying in the middle of downtown.