Beirut Dispatch 1: Orientating

The view from our room at the Sofitel Le Gabriel in Beirut's Achrafiye neighborhood, on the other side of downtown from the American University and the famous Corniche seaside promenade. Technically Achrafiye is a hip area of east Beirut, but there's only a couple of streets with anything on them aside from houses and apartment buildings. I have no idea if the wreckage above is related to Lebanon's civil war, which ended in 1990, but this city seems to be constantly rebuilding; construction cranes are everywhere.