As the news about Amazon picking Long Island City as one of its two new headquarters locations came through, opposition on social media flashed photos of restaurants closing in Astoria and Greek restaurants being replaced with national chains. People started raising the prospect of ethnic enclaves in Astoria being wiped out.
At the same time, Crain’s Chicago Business published a piece entitled “Can Greektown Survive?” by journalist Ari Bendersky (the piece is available online). Chicago’s Greektown is located in the hottest part of the city’s real estate market – over the past few years the headquarters of McDonald’s and the Midwest headquarters for Google have relocated to the West Loop. If one walks east from Greektown, what was once a relative deadzone along the Chicago River between the central business district and Greektown now hosts a bevy of corporate headquarters buildings – including a new Facebook office, Boeing’s corporate headquarters, and law firms and corporate giants like CNA Insurance that relocated west from along the lakefront. The decline of Chicago’s Greektown may presage the fate of Astoria.
Conscience of a Hellene 