The restored Moulay Hafid Palace 1912 – 2012 and the centenary of the establishment of protectorate Morocco has had its occasional magazine article, but so far I haven't seen any mention of the 100th birthday of what has been called Tangier's most beautiful building. Moulay Hafid Palace, also known locally as the Palais des … Read more Moulay Hafid Palace: 100 Years Young
Arch literary enemies Gore Vidal and Truman Capote meet on the docks of Tangier.
Tangier, once the “White City” on the Strait of Gibraltar, succumbs to waterproof red paint.
Tangier has its Syrian mosque, with its own Facebook page. It has its Syrian quarter. Google it, and you'll get a page full of real estate ads. In Tangier, the quartier Syrien is a solidly middle class collection of villas built on slopes. Why "Syrian?" Because in the 1960s, a wave of Syrian exiles found … Read more From Syria to Tangier
From the blog "Space and Place," Dr. George F. Roberson The Frontline Diplomacy collection of oral histories, part of the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, offers priceless insights into the practice of US foreign policy over the latter half of the twentieth century. The collection was compiled by ADST, the Association for … Read more Tangier’s Long Transition: Interzone to Moroccan City
Art critic and social historian Terence MacCarthy has done it again: another historic hotel, another book. The title choice A Room With a View may disturb E.M. Forster and Merchant-Ivory fans, but the subtitle shows that this is not plagiarism: A History of the Grand Hotel Villa de France. And it's MacCarthy's Tangier, not Forster's … Read more The Rooms Still Have a View
Commemorations often have a political or symbolic edge, so the 1912 establishment of French and Spanish protectorates in Morocco has been noted, but of course not celebrated. It's different with the centenary of the Moroccan post office. Cause for celebration – and innovation, with the first "audio stamp," which can play the national anthem on … Read more A Century of Moroccan Mail
The Tangier American Legation Pavilion; photo by Elizabeth Gill Lui Though it is emblematic of the entire institution, the Pavilion was the last of the historic Legation buildings erected in this collection of structures built around and over pedestrians-only America Street in Tangier's medina. Here's what Honor Bigelow wrote of the building 80 years … Read more Legation Pavilion: Endangered National Treasure
http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/home Today's post is an admission of ignorance, prompted by the resurgence of interest in the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, with its bicentennial commemorations (check the PBS link above, plus this great Navy/Marine/Coast Guard site, "Our Flag Was Still There"). With the resources at hand (8,000 volume library, JSTOR database … Read more Moroccan Questions for War of 1812 Experts
On this Fourth of July, when across the United States, and in those places overseas where Americans meet, the red, white and blue decorates many a barbecue and picnic, we display this gift of Moroccans to Americans, dating back to the late 1950s. American flags haven't flown over the Legation in, what, more than 50 … Read more Consul, Wrapped In Flag: Odd Legation Tales
