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Local Landmarks & Heritage

  • National Hellenic Museum (1983/2011)
  • Greek pavilions/columns (1996)
  • Halsted Street corridor
  • Site of the original "Delta" (Harrison/Blue Island/Halsted)

Neighborhood History

Greektown grew from the wave of Greek immigrants who began arriving in Chicago in the 1840s, with community numbers surging after the Great Fire of 1871 brought rebuilding work to the city. By the early 1900s, Greek families had concentrated around Harrison, Blue Island, and Halsted Streets in a triangular district Greeks themselves called "The Delta," after the shape formed by the intersecting streets, with Jane Addams' Hull House serving as an early community hub.

By 1930, the Delta was home to more than 30,000 Greek and Greek-American residents, but the construction of the Eisenhower Expressway and the University of Illinois campus in the 1960s displaced the community north to its current stretch of Halsted between Van Buren and Madison. In 1996, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, the city funded Greek-columned pavilions at the district's major intersections, and the National Hellenic Museum, founded in 1983 with its current Halsted Street building opened in 2011, still anchors the neighborhood's identity.

MY-NHD's Greektown collection is built for a district that has moved blocks, changed shape, and never once let go of the culture that built it.

MY-NHD

Greektown - Chicago - Unisex Cotton Tee

Greektown - Chicago - Unisex Cotton Tee

Regular price $29.95 CAD
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Chicago’s Greektown traces to Greek immigrants who settled near Halsted Street from the 1840s, in a district they called The Delta. After 1960s expressway and campus construction moved the community north, the National Hellenic Museum anchored it on Halsted.

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