Old Town Hall of Nicosia

The Old Town Hall of Nicosia (Palio Dimarchio Levkosias) is one of the beautiful neoclassical buildings within the city walls, on the D’Avila bastion.

An area that housed the municipality from 1944 until 2016, between the old medieval city walls and the modern urban cluster stretching out of the walls, the Old Town Hall of Nicosia was built in 1930 and was originally used as a family cabaret with the name “Luna Park” and later hosted the offices of APOEL’s football team.

The first offices of the municipality, whose administrative area until 1882 included only the area within the walls, were housed in the Nea Agora in a privately-owned house and later moved to a house in Makridromos, today’s Ledra street.

In 1944, during the term of the mayor Themistokli Dervi, it was decided to transfer a large part of the municipal services to the building above the bastion of D’Avila. In 1951, it was decided to renovate and expand the building, and after the Turkish invasion of 1974, Metaxas Square, next to it, was renamed to Eleftherias (Freedom) Square. The impressive neoclassical building, illuminated in the evening, is based on Ionic-style marble columns.

This area, a few centuries earlier, was part of the Monastery of Panagia (Virgin Mary) of Eleousa, which was demolished in 1567 to construct the city walls by the Italian architect Giulio Savorgnano and during the last years of the Ottoman occupation and the first of the British occupation, the inhabitants of Pitsilia came here and used the space to sell their products every Tuesday. In the same place as the Old Town Hall of Nicosia, the visitor today will see lush gardens, a parking lot and a fountain. To the west of the building there are the post office, the Cyprus Library, while under the bastion there is a large parking lot and a leisure park.