Queens - A Patchwork Of Cultures

Where They Live
About 30,000 Greeks live in the Astoria area. Many children of Greek parents who settled there in the 1960s have chosen to move to Whitestone, Bayside and other Eastern Queens communities. A close-knit familial community, they come home to Astoria for holidays and celebrations to stay in touch with the largest Greek community outside Athens. (Also, the area’s cultural and educational opportunities often encourage the twenty-something group to come back home.)

How They Got There
The history of Queens’ Little Athens began in 1927, with 16 newly settled Greek immigrant families.

“They were the pioneers of the Greek community in Astoria,” says George Zachariadis, Community Manager of St. Demetrios Cathedral. “Those families worked to raise funds to build a Greek Orthodox Church in the area. They were only able to raise enough funds to lay a foundation, and build the church basement,” he said. “And for the next 13 years, members of the Greek community in Astoria worshipped in that basement.”

Greeks in Queens have maintained their culture through niche businesses and a strong religious presence. Tribune photo by Ira Cohen

What Makes Them Who They Are
There are now more than two dozen Greek Orthodox Churches in Queens, helping to preserve the rich culture and history of Greece for everyone living in Queens.

The Good Life
Queens elected its first Greek-American to public office in 2000. Michael Gianaris, an Astoria resident, fought hard for and won a seat in the New York State Assembly. Today, Gianaris serves almost 200,000 constituents from his offices on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria. Italians, Hispanics, Asians and Greek Americans seek his help and counsel on any number of issues.

“The Astoria Greek community is a classic New York story,” Gianaris said. “It is a story of immigrants coming to this country, working hard and making a better life for their children than they had themselves.”

The Not-So-Good Life
Though an issue rarely spoken of publicly, a sore point between many Greek-Americans and the U.S. Government started in 1974, when hostilities were inflamed between Turkish and Greek military forces on the island of Cyprus, a territory of long dispute between two cultures of long dispute. The conflicts culminated in a quarter-million Greek Cypriot refugees. The U.S. effectively backed away from—some say thwarted—efforts to restore areas of Cyprus to Greek control.

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