Storefronts and restaurant patios line Danforth Avenue, with Greek Orthodox churches and a public square just off the strip.
What Greektown looks like
Danforth Avenue runs a commercial spine for over a kilometre between Chester Avenue and Dewhurst Boulevard, storefronts at street level with apartments and offices above. Restaurant patios line the street on both sides, and street signs are lettered in English and Greek above the sidewalk.
Behind the strip, side streets carry large detached and semi-detached houses from the Edwardian and Victorian periods, most built between 1912 and 1930. The houses are uniform in scale but individually detailed, with slate roofs, fish-scale shingles, stone gates and porches.
The , built between 1913 and 1926, stands on the Danforth just west of Pape Avenue. Its columned entrance carries a Latin inscription above the doors, modelled on Rome's Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. , a few blocks north on Gough Avenue, has a white stucco facade with icon medallions over the entrance and a cross at the peak.
A public square at Logan Avenue holds the , a bronze bust framed by stone columns with a fountain beside it. , a mini-mall built around the Big Carrot natural food market, sits at the strip's western end, on Jackman Avenue. , a red brick building with a public pool, faces Logan Avenue just south of the strip.
The subway runs beneath the avenue, with entrances at Chester, Pape and Broadview stations. The Pape entrance is a glass box on the corner under the TTC roundel. Ethiopian, Turkish, Persian and Lebanese restaurants now sit among the older Greek storefronts along the strip.
Shot in Greektown
My Big Fat Greek Wedding, set in Chicago, used a real Danforth Avenue storefront to play a travel agency in the film's Chicago Greektown. The real Greek restaurant across the street from it plays itself in the finished film.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002
Played a travel agency, the Greek district of Chicago, Illinois, present day
A real storefront at 439 Danforth Avenue was dressed and filmed, inside and out, as Aunt Voula's travel agency. The Greek restaurant Pappas Grill, directly across the street, is visible through the travel agency's window in the finished film. The cast and crew often ate there during the shoot.
What Greektown can double for
Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois
My Big Fat Greek Wedding dressed a real Danforth Avenue storefront as a shop in its fictional Chicago, and Halsted Street's own Greek district still carries the same run of Greek restaurants over street level storefronts. Both strips mix travel agencies, bakeries and tavernas along a single commercial spine. Chicago's blocks run wider and the brick reads redder in daylight, so keep the frame tight on the storefronts rather than the street width. Try searching Greek restaurant storefronts now.
Green Lanes through Harringay carries its own dense run of Greek Cypriot and Turkish restaurants, grocers and travel agencies over ground floor storefronts, the same commercial strip pattern as the Danforth. Dual language shop signage is common along both streets. Red pillar boxes, British road markings and right hand traffic would need dressing out of any wide shot. Try searching Greek Cypriot restaurant strip now.
Astoria in Queens, New York
Astoria's own Greek diners and bakeries still line Broadway, an older Greek retail strip that has taken on other cuisines much the way the Danforth has. Both keep travel agencies and coffee shops at street level under a few storeys of apartments. Astoria's elevated N and W trains would give the location away in any wide shot, since the Danforth's own subway runs underground with no visible structure. Try searching Greek diner strip now.
