A Tribute to Athens in Astoria's Melting Pot

Located at the quintessential Astoria street intersection, 30th Avenue and 30th Street, Athens Square is an approximately 1-acre tribute to the modern capital of Greece and its cultural center in the classic age. It has been a park since 1963 with subsequent renovations in 1990 and again in 1993.

Anthony Frudakis‘ bronze of the philosopher Socrates (of whom, it was written, was not as good-looking as he is depicted in art) was unveiled in 1993, while three adjacent granite Doric columns arrived in 1996.

In 1998, Athens Mayor Demetris Avramopoulos presented the city with a replica of the Piraeus Athena (originally sculpted about 350 B.C.). It depicts the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and patroness of the arts.

The Aristotle bust was sculpted by George V. Tsaras of Greece and is a gift from the people of Halkidiki, a peninsula in the Greek region of Macedonia; it was unveiled in April 2008.

Though the casual observer thinks of Astoria as primarily a Greek enclave, the neighborhood’s Greek population has decreased in recent years — not in a mass exodus, but it has been lessening. To repeat a cliché, Astoria is one of the City’s truest “melting pots” with Greeks, Jews, Brazilians, Maltese, Spanish, Bangladeshis, and Eastern Europeans such as Albanians, Bulgarians, and Bosnians all sharing the stage with run-of-the-mill Irish-Americans, like your writer.