Στην
Ελληνική Γειτονιά του Σικάγου θα βρείτε ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ
Εστιατόρια, Ζαχαροπλαστεία, Καφενεία, Παντοπωλεία, Κοσμηματοπωλεία, Καπνοπωλεία,
Είδη Γάμου, Φαρμακεία, κ.λ.π. ενώ είναι χώρος συνάντησης Ελλήνων Φοιτητών.
Εκεί γίνεται και η καθιερωμένη Παρέλαση της 25ης Μαρτίου 1821 καθώς επίσης και το καθιερωμένο Ελληνικό γλέντι κάθε Αύγουστο. (φωτο. κάτω: Εύζωνας)
Other Greek websites of Greektown in
Chicago.
- http://www.greektownmsc.com/
- http://www.greekchicago.com
- http://www.soundsofgreece.com
-
http://planetgr.com
- http://www.hellenicheartbeat.com
-
http://www.chicagogreektown.com/
-
http://www.greektownchicago.com/
In Chicago's Greek town you can find Greek restaurants, Greek pastry shops, Greek bars, Greek cafes, Greek jewelry shops, Greek cigar stores, Greek bridal stores, Greek telecommunication (i.e. cell phone) companies, pharmacies where you can read in Greek «24-ΩΡΕΣ»=24-hours and «ΦΑΡΜΑΚΕΙΟΝ»=pharmacy, copy centers, computer Centers etc. Greek town in Chicago is also a very popular place for socializing among other Greek students studying in Chicago.
Chicago's Greektown is the place where the Greek Parade for the National celebration of the Greek revolution of March 25 1821 is taking place every year. The Greek Summer Festival is also being held in Chicago's Greektown every August. (Photo on the Left: Evzone)
The Greektown of Chicago is located a few minutes away from the Chicago's loop (2-5 minutes by car) off I-90-94 expressway and immediately north of I-190 Eisenhower Expressway.
WELCOME TO CHICAGOLAND's GREEKTOWN - MAP - LOCATION
- HIGHLIGHTS
1)
Pan Hellenic Pastry Shop -
322 S. Halsted St.
Louis, Jimmy and Athinoula Manolakos
(312) 454-1886
2) Artopolis - Greek Bakery Cafe and Agora - Antonis Katsoulias «Αρκούδας» 306 S. Halsted St. 1.877.50.ARTOS
3) Athenian Candle Co. 300 S. Halsted St. (312) 332-6988
4) Greektown Gift and Music Shop - Κώστας από την Κύπρο 330 S. Halsted St. 312.263.6342
5) Chicago Christian Industrial League resale Shop 123 S. Green St. 312-421-0588
6) Greektown Gyros 239 S. Halsted St. (312) 236-9310
7) Pegasus Greek Restaurant and Taverna 130 S. Halsted St. (312) 226-3377
8) Roditys Greek restaurant - Περικλής Σινόπουλος 222 S. Halsted St. (312) 454-0800
9) Greek Islands Restaurant 200 S. Halsted St. (312) 782-9855
10) Parthenon Greek Restaurant - Χρήστος Λιάκουρας 314 S. Halsted St. (312) 726-2407
11) Santorini Greek Fish Restaurant 800 W. Adams St. (312) 829-FISH/8820
12) Jorgio Cigar Inc. - Γιώργος Παππάς 320 S. Halsted St. (312) 906-9500
13) Nine Muses Cafe - Νίκος Καράμπελας 315 S. Halsted St. (312) 902-9922
14) Green Room Bar - Αλέξης Γιαννούλιας 130 S. Green St. (312) 666-9813
15) Spectrum Bar and Grill - Ανδρέας από Κύπρο 233 S. Halsted St. (312) 715-0770
16) Venus Cyprus Restaurant and Mezedopolion- Greek cuisine from Cyprus - Κώστας από Κύπρο 820 W. Jackson Blvd. Venus Restaurant (312) 714-1001
The History of
Chicago's Greektown
by Christos A. Neophytou
There was little Greek emigration in the 19th century but this changed in the 20th century. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 there were about 300,000 Greek immigrants in the United States. The main reasons for leaving Greece and Asia Minor was the constant persecution and genocide inflicted upon them by the Ottoman Turks until the total Hellenic holocaust of 1922. Other reasons for leaving Greece were the subsequent unemployment, low wages and high prices.
Most Greeks settled in cities where they tended to find menial, unskilled work. A Greek community developed around Second and Third Avenues in New York. In 1894 the Greeks began publishing their own newspaper, Atlantis in the city of New York.
During this period another important Greek colony emerged around Hull House in Chicago and another one in the textile town of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Chicago has
just been incorporated some years before, in 1833
and in 1889 the Hull House opened in the
South Halsted Street slums under the direction of Jane Addams and Ellen Gates
Starr. The settlement house helped the poor of the city including many Greeks.
Coincidentally Hull House had just
been founded, and it was at the epicenter of what would become several large
immigrant colonies. Adjoining it to the north was the rapidly populating Greek
"delta." Immediately to the west were immigrants from the provinces south of
Rome. To the south was the burgeoning Jewish ghetto around Maxwell Street that
slowly pushed out the remaining Germans and Irish. And to the south of Maxwell
Street was one of the largest Bohemian colonies outside of Czechoslovakia,
appropriately called Pilsen.
The Greeks grew in numbers in the "delta," now called "Greektown." The special attention Jane Addams gave the Greeks turned her into a veritable patroness of Hellenic arts and ideals. Not only did Greeks fill up the English night classes there but they were enthralled when Addams established a Hull House Theater and put on classical Greek plays such as Odysseus and Ajax with immigrant Greeks playing the roles in their native Greek tongue.
The Hull House gymnasium was also used by a Greek Educational Association. Several thousand Greek young men so trained volunteered to fight in the Balkan Wars in 1912. Appreciative of her help, the Greek government awarded her the Order of Phoenix.
When Jane Addams died in 1935, Greek businesses on Halsted Street closed for a day mourning for the person the Greeks eulogized as the "Saint of Halsted Street" for her ceaseless dedication to their welfare and needs the Greek immigrants. As scholar Andrew Kopan wrote, the Greek community saw Jane Addams as a "mother" and Hull House as "a home away from home" and the "spiritual and cultural hearth of Greek immigrants." The Greek community also confirmed in Jane Addams another article of faith, which held that all the immigrants needed was an opportunity and a temporary helping hand to pull themselves up from poverty By 1920 the Greektown delta was a beehive of business and entrepreneurial activity. There and in the city at large, Greek-Americans owned and operated more than 10,000 stores, meat markets, bakeries, flower shops, confectioneries, shoe repair and shine parlors, and other small businesses.
All large
cities in the United States have had Greek communities. These are often
self-sufficient with their own churches, coffee house, mutual benefit societies
and political clubs. Greek Orthodox religious festivals and traditions are
strictly observed. By 1910 both New York and Chicago had Greek-language
newspapers.
The Census of 1930 revealed 303,751 Greeks in the United States. Chicago had the
biggest Greek population of over 50,000 followed by New York having 35,000.
There were also large communities in Detroit, Boston and St. Louis.
Today there are an estimated of 450,000 Greeks living in Chicago Illinois and 500,000 Greeks living in New York.
Ελληνικές Παραδοσιακές Ενδυμασίες
και Ελληνικοί χοροί
In Summary the History of the Greektown in Chicago:
In the 1840s, a few Greek traders and ship's captains who worked the Great Lakes lived in Chicago. The Greek population swelled during the 1890s, growing to almost 1500 people by 1900. Most of these immigrants lived in an area known as the Delta, bounded by Halsted, Harrison, Blue Island, and Polk Streets. Many worked alongside the Italians at the Randolph Street Market. Hull-House was an important social and cultural center for the Greek community.The largest settlement of Greeks in the United States until the 1950s, this community flourished, establishing Greek newspapers, fraternal and benevolent associations, and churches with parochial schools emphasizing Greek language and culture. Beginning in the 1950s, with the construction of the expressways and later the University of Illinois campus, many Greeks moved out of the area. St. Basil Greek Orthodox Church remains, however, as do the "Greek Town" restaurants along Halsted Street.
Bibliography:
- All
About the Windy City ... Chicago Illinois!
-
Spartacus Educational
- Hull
House and the Emigrants
- Chicago
Historical Society - Rooting/ Uprooting