In the mid-17th century, the Mughal governor of Kabul, Ali Mardan Khan, built an arched bazaar at the heart of the city that was part of a series of spectacular architectural projects in the region sponsored by the Emperor Shah Jahan. Unlike Shah Jahan’s other legacies such as Delhi’s Taj Mahal or Lahore’s Shalimar Gardens, Kabul’s Char Chata bazaar no longer exists. It was first partly destroyed by the British army’s arson of Kabul in 1842 during the first Anglo-Afghan war, and then in 1949 the Afghan government replaced it with a boulevard as part of an urban modernization project. At the center of Char Chata bazaar was a square known as Chawk that still exists in Kabul. This square and the bazaar, in addition to their commercial roles, served as a medium of communication and a space of assembly. In exploring the communicative functions of Char Chatta and Chawk square, I will examine how, before the arrival printing press, this public space played as an alternative source of news circulation, producing a counter-narrative to the official news which were disseminated from the Royal Palace. Drawing on primary Afghan and British sources and informed by recent debates in spatial humanities on the dynamics of media and space, this paper contributes to critical media history of the Middle East by discussing the central role this public space played in the cultural and commercial lives of the city. Even today, despite the increasing importance of digital media technologies in our everyday lives, the revolts and revolutions taking place in city squares all over the world demonstrate the continuous significance of urban public spaces as tools of communication, organization, and assembly.