La Quarantaine, which is colloquially referred to as Karantina (Arabic: الكرنتينا) and sometimes spelled Quarantina, is a predominately low-income, mixed-use residential, commercial, and semi-industrial neighborhood in northeastern Beirut. The neighborhood lies east of the Port of Beirut, which also encircles it from the north, west of the Beirut River and north of the Charles Helou highway and the Achrafieh district of Beirut.
The neighborhood takes its name from the French, La Quarantaine, because it was the location where a lazaretto for travellers was built at the request of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Governor of Egypt, who controlled Syria and Beirut in 1831[1][2]. The lazaretto was to be managed by a committee made up of the Austrian, Danish, French, Greek, and Spanish consuls[3]. Close to a quarter million refugees of the Armenian Genocide were settled in makeshift camps at La Quarantaine in the early 1920s[4]. The camp was destroyed by fire in 1933 but by then most of the Armenian refugees had settled elsewhere in Beirut and Bourj Hammoud[5]. In 1951, 1,300 Palestinian refugees were settled in the area[6]. By the mid seventies, the neighborhood had become a favela of 27,000 people[7]
During the civil war, the area was overtaken by Palestinian Fatah guerrillas who were distributing arms[8] and attempting to cut off Beirut's most important Christian quarter, Achrafieh[9]. Additionally from La Quarantaine, the Palestinians were able to control the northern entrance of Beirut[10], thus severing Achrafieh from the predominately-Christian, northern suburbs. In retaliation, Christian militias attacked Fatah guerrillas in Karantina, which was the scene of a massacre of Shi'a, Kurds and Palestinians. For this, see Karantina Massacre.
Industries in La Quarantaine used to be centered around the production of glass, furniture, tile and bricks, leather products, but many of these industries were replaced with the production of metal-based, cereal silos, tanneries and artisanal industries[11].
The area is one of the most polluted parts of the city due to its vicinity to the port as well as the presence of the city slaughterhouse and Sukleen's waste disposal and treatment center.[12]
The southern part of the neighborhood adjacent to the highway is home to various commercial establishments, such as the Forum de Beyrouth, the multipurpose events center that hosted Beirut Rock Festival in 2009. B 018, the renowned nightclub is also located in the area.
An increasing number of art galleries have opened or relocated to the neighborhood such as Joy Mardini’s Art Factum Gallery, located in a former steel factory, which opened in 2011[13].