Greektown (Chicago neighborhood)

“Greektown” or “Greek Town” is a term meaning a city (not in Greece) that has many people of Greek ancestry. The Greektown in Chicago, Illinois, is well known, but there are others. “Chinatown” is an earlier, similar term for Chinese areas.
 
“Greek-town” (in Smyrna, Turkey) was mentioned in The Knickerbocker magazine for May 1838. “One portion of Buda is called ‘Greek-town’” (in Budapest, Hungary) was printed in the Sycamore (IL) True Republican on July 20, 1870.
 
“Greektown” (in Tarpon Springs, Florida) was printed in the Tampa (FL) Morning Tribune on January 30, 1908. “Greektown” (In Salt Lake City, Utah) was printed in The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, UT) on February 7, 1908. “Greektown” (in Chicago, Illinois) was printed in the Kansas City (MO) Post on August 6, 1908.
 
“Arriving at Harrison Street, we got off the car and walked south a block until we arrived in the midst of ‘The Delta,’ or Greek colony. It is familiarly known to Chicagoans as ‘Greektown,’ I explained, but the Greeks know it only as ‘The Delta’” was printed in the book Chicago in Seven Days (1930) by John Drury. The author explained: “The Greek colony here, you see, extends from Harrison Street southward on Halsted for a block to Polk Street, then west a block to Blue Island Avenue, returning northeast of this latter avenue to the intersection of Harrison and Halsted streets again. The district, therefore, describes the printed letter ‘D’ of the Greek alphabet.” 
 
   
Wikipedia: Greektown, Chicago
Greektown is a social and dining district, located on the Near West Side of Chicago. Today, Greektown consists mostly of restaurants and businesses, although a cultural museum and an annual parade and festival still remain in the neighborhood.
 
The district can be found along Halsted Street, between Van Buren and Madison Streets.
 
History
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, including the founder Christ Chakonas, later dubbed the “Columbus of Sparta,” inspired by the prospect of rebuilding the town of Chicago. Almost a decade later, in 1882, a group of nearly one thousand Greek immigrants resided in Chicago’s Near North Side area.
 
The original Greektown district 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 socioeconomic background.
(...)
By 1930, the area which had become known as the “Greek Delta”, held a foreign and native-born population of over 30,000. Greektown had been nicknamed the “Greek Delta” because it was located North and west of the Hull House on Blue Island, Halsted, and Harrison Street, which created a triangle that resembles a Delta. After World War II, an influx of Greeks immigrated to the US under the Displaced Persons Act, and an even more enormous amount entered in 1965 when the National Origins Act was repealed. Many of them ended up residing in Chicago. This population continued its growth and expansion with the district growing in size and area.
 
Newspapers.com
13 June 1838, Fredonia (NY) Censor, pg. 4, col. 1:
From the Knickerbocker for May,
SMYRNA.
(...)
It (“Jew-town’—ed.) would be considered the filthiest spot under the sun, if Greek-town was not there to out do it.
 
Newspapers.com
20 July 1870, Sycamore (IL) True Republican, “European Correspondence,” pg. 1, col. 6:
One portion of Buda is called “Greek-town.”
(Now in Budapest, Hungary.—ed.)
 
Newspapers.com
30 January 1908, Tampa (FL) Morning Tribune, “$45,000 Fire at Tarpon Springs,” pg. 3, col. 2:
“Greektown,” the section occupied by the sponge-diving colony, was first affected, ...
 
Newspapers.com
7 February 1908, The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, UT), “Councilmen Visit Their Greek Friends,” pg. 2, col. 7:
The trip was made because it has been reported that “Greektown” is not as quiet as it should be at night.
 
Newspapers.com
9 March 1908, The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, UT), pg. 9, col. 5:
GREEKS HAVE TOWN
THAT IS PECULIAR
IN SCORES OF WAYS
Chinese No Longer Have Monopoly on Characteristic Habit
of Flocking Together in Colonies—American Should
Beware of Becoming Involved WIth Drunken
Men—Saloons Are Plentiful.
“Greektown” in Salt Lake is becoming as distinct from other poritons of the city as Chinatown. Until the Greeks began to gather in the vicinity of West Second South street, between Fourth and Fifth streets, the Chinese were the only members of a foreign race that seemd to desire to keep to themselves and not mingle with other races.
(...)
Greektown is becoming as interesting a place as Chinatown. The Greeks now have eight saloons, five or six restaurants, a church and a concert hall. Most of the men of Greektown are not married and the life there, for that reason, lacks some of the influences of womankind. 
 
Newspapers.com
6 August 1908, Kansas City (MO) Post, pg. 5, col. 4:
POLICE FIND HEAD OF DIS-
MEMBERED BODY.
CHICAGO, Aug. 6.—
(...)
The capture was made in the section known as “Greektown,” and the prisoner, whose name the police refuse to reveal, is being held in the lawndale station.
 
Newspapers.com
14 February 1927, Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune, “Most Delinquent Boys Found in Business Area,” pg. 12, col. 2:
“The zone in transition,” he declares, “holds the most intense of Chicago’s social problems. It is an area in which flourishes all that is picturesque and arresting in the modern city: hobohemia, the Ghetto, Greektown, Little Siciliy, the cabarets, the spiritualistic halls and the Moody Bible Institute. It is the slum of every English and American city.” 
 
Google Book
Chicago in Seven Days
By John Drury
New York, NY: Robert M. McBride and Company
1930
Pg. 91:
Arriving at Harrison Street, we got off the car and walked south a block until we arrived in the midst of “The Delta,” or Greek colony. It is familiarly known to Chicagoans as “Greektown,” I explained, but the Greeks know it only as “The Delta.”
 
“Why do they cal lt the ‘Delta’?” asked Miss Morley.
 
“For this reason,” I answered. “The Greek colony here, you see, extends from Harrison Street southward on Halsted for a block to Polk Street, then west a block to Blue Island Avenue, returning northeast of this latter avenue to the intersection of Harrison and Halsted streets again. The district, therefore, describes the printed letter ‘D’ of the Greek alphabet.” 
 
Newspapers.com
30 October 1962, Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune, pt. 2, pg. 8, col. 6 ad:
PRIZE RECIPES FROM
CHICAGO’S GREEK COLONY
Not too many people realize it, but Chicago is the fourth-largest Greek city in the world. And its local Greek cuisine beats anything in Athens. As one visitor fro mthe old country put it: “You people are more native than we are.”
 
In this week’s Saturday Evening Post, you’ll take a cook’s tour of Chicago’s Greektown.
 
Newspapers.com
20 May 1963, Streator (IL) Times-Press, pg. 2, col. 8 ad:
7 p. m. Wednesday
Chicago Ch. 2 CBS-TV
(Good Night, Socrates)
Award winning dramatic
documentary about Chicago’s
“Greek-Twon” and how an
urban renewal project affects
three generations in a Greek
family.
(Streator TV Cable Company.—ed.)