{"id":1031,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-03-04 21:32:05","latitude":41.49683954184678214005543850362300872802734375,"longitude":-81.6861927509307861328125,"title":"Greek Town","subtitle":"Onetime Heart of Cleveland's Eastern Mediterranean Communities","fullsize":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/b075cf420e41bd644a4bd93b2effeaf3.jpg","address":"Bolivar Rd, Cleveland, OH","zoom":16,"creator":["J. Mark Souther"],"description":"Cleveland’s Greek population, only 6 in 1890 and 42 ten years later, soared to near its peak of 5,000 before immigration restrictions in 1924 imposed low quotas for further newcomers from Greece and other eastern Mediterranean nations. A smaller but still sizable community of immigrants had also come from what are now Lebanon and Syria. So many Greeks settled in the Haymarket district around the Central Market that the enclave that some Clevelanders referred to this area as \"Greek Town.\" Some Greeks worked as fruit and vegetable peddlers, others as day laborers or steelworkers. Over time, a number became storekeepers, bakers, and proprietors of coffee houses and wholesale import grocery houses selling everything from olives to dried devil fish. Bolivar Road emerged as the social center for Greeks, its numerous coffee houses serving as places where Greek men sipped coffee or tea, shared hookahs, gossiped, played cards, dominoes, or barbouth, and caught up on news from their homeland. Yet even as Greek Town lost more and more Greek residents to Tremont and neighborhoods along East 79th Street in the years after World War I, its businesses remained a magnet drawing them back both to buy goods and socialize.
By the early 1940s, Plain Dealer columnist S. J. Kelly lamented that he “found Bolivar Road sadly depleted of its Greek. It is, in fact, a modern business thoroughfare and most of its classic residents are scattered over the city.” In the postwar years, as so many Clevelanders departed for the suburbs, remnants of ethnic communities beckoned as “old and colorful” anomalies in a downtown increasingly dominated by office towers and parking garages. As Bolivar Road transitioned from a complete neighborhood to the central business district for Greek, Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian populations that were now spread across the metropolitan area, it also gained greater popularity beyond these communities. A succession of \"Grecian-American\" restaurant-clubs at 714 Bolivar — The Athenian, Grecian Nites, and Never On Sunday — enticed patrons with belly dancers and bouzouki music. Middle East Restaurant, opening in 1962, introduced many Clevelanders to Middle Eastern cuisine. The restaurant’s proprietor, Edward Khouri, a native of Aramoun, a village near Beirut, built a loyal clientele with inexpensive, authentic dishes prepared and served by Josephine Abraham, also Lebanese. As Abraham later recalled, pita and hummus were so exotic to many customers when she started at the restaurant that she had to instruct them on how to use pita to eat hummus; “It was like feeding babies,” she quipped.
In 1973, the Greek and Middle Eastern businesses on Bolivar Road, along with the L&K Hotel, a single-room-occupancy hotel for “down-on-their-luck men,” fell to the wrecking ball to make way for a parking lot, which was later replaced with a garage for Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Plain Dealer columnist George Condon echoed S. J. Kelly’s lament of three decades before, complaining that “downtown is diminished again.” While the Middle East Restaurant and Shiekh Grocery were able to find space in and next to the Carter Manor (formerly the Hotel Carter), other businesses dispersed. Today there is no sign of the Greek, Lebanese, and Syrian enclave on Bolivar. Greek culture revolves more around churches such as Tremont’s Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. However, on nearby Carnegie Avenue, St. Maron Church and Aladdin’s Bakery and Market still offer visible reminders of where Cleveland’s Middle Eastern communities got their start.","sponsor":"Hellenic Preservation Society of Greater Cleveland","accessinfo":"","lede":null,"website":null,"related_resources":["“Area Interest Increases in Arabic Language, Food.” Plain Dealer. February 7, 1975.","Condon, George E. “Downtown is Diminished Again.” Plain Dealer. November 16, 1973.","Eddy, Kristin. “The Queen of Lebanese Cuisine Middle East Chef.” Plain Dealer. November 11, 1992.","Escargot, Fourchette. “This Middle East Restaurant Offers Peace and Good Food.” Plain Dealer. April 5, 1968.","Hirschfeld, Mary. “Mary Hirschfeld Hears...” Plain Dealer. December 18, 1973.","Kabalan, Said. “Arab-Americans.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. ","Kelly, Grace V. “The Woman Always Waits, Bolivar Proves.” Plain Dealer. February 21, 1930.","Kelly, S. J. “The First Greek in Cleveland.” Plain Dealer. May 23, 1941.","Loveland, R. A. “When Greek Meets Greek It’s Over Coffee in Bolivar.” Plain Dealer. March 27, 1927.","Melnick, Norman. “Bolivar Road, a World Within the City.” Plain Dealer. September 9, 1962.","Miller, William F. “Bolivar Businesses Flourish at New Sites.” Plain Dealer. January 27, 1974.","Miller, William F. “Parking Lot Displaces Bolivar’s Old-world Middle East Colony.” Plain Dealer. September 9, 1973.","Rodis, Themistocles. “Greeks.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. ","Snook, Debbi. “Popularity of Pita Helps Bakery Rise.” Plain Dealer. November 4, 1991.","“The Lebanese.” Plain Dealer. November 1, 1997."],"factoids":["It is unclear whether members of Cleveland's Greek community ever referred to Bolivar Road as \"Greek Town.\" or if that name was bestowed by outsider commentators. The first known mention of this name in local newspapers was in 1993."],"files":{"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/b075cf420e41bd644a4bd93b2effeaf3.jpg":{"id":12290,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Acropolis Coffee House","description":"''Greeks in the Acropolis Coffee House talking it over. L to R. Louis Jeavaris, Alliance O., Louis Vlachos, Youngstown O., Speros Mouroules, 2121 E. 12. St., John Someas, 642 Bolivar Rd.'' -- photo verso. Note the hookah on the table. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | ca. 1920","thumbnail":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/b075cf420e41bd644a4bd93b2effeaf3.jpg"},"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/7adda302d6408abc94be4fd398873f26.jpg":{"id":12292,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Location of "Greek Town"","description":"Although its presence is invisible on this generalized map, many Greek businesses were concentrated along Bolivar Road for the first seven decades of the 20th century. The focal point was the Bradley Building at Bolivar and Bradley Court, which had several dozen tenements above and behind storefronts that housed Greek businesses. | Plat Map Book of the City of Cleveland, Ohio. Vol. I. Philadelphia: G. M. Hopkins & Co., 1932. Cleveland Public Library.","thumbnail":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/7adda302d6408abc94be4fd398873f26.jpg"},"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/d67dcc9dcfe833812a90328f052db006.jpg":{"id":12291,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Bradley Building","description":"Greek businesses pictured on the building's right (west) end include the Olympia Restaurant & Bar and the Acropolis Cafe. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | 1959","thumbnail":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/d67dcc9dcfe833812a90328f052db006.jpg"},"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/321b6372642b7cd667a6849531adc893.jpg":{"id":12298,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Ad for The Athenian","description":"The Athenian, once a Greek coffee house, opened in 1964. Mixing Americanized Greek food with belly dancing and bouzouki music, the Athenian attracted lunchtime crowds from downtown office buildings and suburban couples in the evenings with its promise of "ample free parking." Within a decade, it too would become parking but for a price. | Cleveland Plain Dealer | March 25, 1966","thumbnail":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/321b6372642b7cd667a6849531adc893.jpg"},"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/7a2d1f3d7e01a05783f58fe26285386b.jpg":{"id":12299,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Ad for Never on Sunday","description":"Like its 714 Bolivar predecessors the Athenian and Grecian Nites, Never on Sunday continued the format of restaurant–night club combining Greek and American food with belly dancers and bouzouki music. (A bouzouki is a long-necked, teardrop-shaped, stringed instrument similar to a lute.) | Cleveland Plain Dealer | June 11, 1971","thumbnail":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/7a2d1f3d7e01a05783f58fe26285386b.jpg"},"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/8ab4c0e9eb89ddc60e55b793b6383527.jpg":{"id":12289,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Bolivar Road Businesses","description":"Notable businesses in this photo of the Bradley Building include Syrian Lebanon Baking Co., Never on Sunday Restaurant, Averoff Cafe, Middle East Restaurant, and Acropolis Cafe. The Bradley Building also contained the L&K Hotel, a single-room-occupancy hotel of the type that once housed the extremely poor before they were destroyed with the encouragement of influential downtown leaders. The Bradley Building was razed in 1973 for a parking lot. Today it is a parking garage serving games and events in the Gateway District. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | 1970 | Larry Nighswander","thumbnail":"https://www.clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/8ab4c0e9eb89ddc60e55b793b6383527.jpg"}}}