page_title: Greektown, Chicago
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Greektown, Chicago / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Greektown during a marathon, Chicago, USA.
context_page_description: Greektown is a social and dining precinct, located on the Near West Side of the United States' city of Chicago, Illinois. The precinct consists of mainly restaurants and businesses, as well as cultural sites and events.
  The precinct can be found on Halsted Street, between Van Buren and Madison Streets.
context_section_description: The first Greek immigrants to settle in Chicago arrived in the 1840s via the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The major fires of Chicago in 1871 caused significant further quantities of Greek immigrants to move to the area, inspired by the prospect of rebuilding the town of Chicago.
  
  The original Greektown precinct on Halsted Street began with the Jane Addams Hull House, which acted as a meeting point for the Greek population within Chicago and provided a basis for community to be built from 1889. This house was used as a hub for the Greek community, and saw further small business expand within this area, despite small numbers, with 245 Greek people reported as living in Chicago, who were noted as predominantly young men of lower socio-economic background. This saw a slow expansion of restaurants, and various other stores throughout the century, with the Chicago tribune reporting in 1895 that ‘the Greeks have almost run the Italians out of the fruit business in Chicago not only on a small retail way, but as wholesalers as well’. 
  
  Attempts to unite the various Greek restaurants in the area as well as the wider city were made with the establishment of ‘Hermes’, a Greek business group in 1910. This group initially failed to gain traction amongst business owners. In the longer term, however, it united the Greek community, writing bylaws for its member businesses and organising social events, laying the framework for current regulatory bodies such as the Greektown organisation.
  
  By 1930, the area which had become known as the ‘Greek Delta’, held a foreign and native-born population of over 30,000. This population continued its growth and expansion with the precinct growing in size and area. This continued until 1960, when the opening of the University of Illinois Chicago campus, as well as the construction and opening of the Eisenhower Expressway, forced the precinct to move North along Halsted street to its  location between Van Buren and Madison streets. The majority of functioning organisations and restaurants operating within the Greektown precinct opened within the 1970-1990 period following relocation to the precinct’s space between Van Buren and Madison streets. 
  
  The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 saw bars and restaurants within the precinct close for business and events either postponed or cancelled due to public-health related Illinois state laws.
caption: Restaurants at Greektown, Chicago
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS D60", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:10:09 12:09:38", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2036", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "12288", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/750", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:10:09 12:09:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:10:09 12:09:38", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "312959/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "48", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2048", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2048", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1866", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "768000/223", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "409600/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}