Our Town

Last year the Ministry of Housing and Environment announced its ambitious ‘beehive’ plan as an essential part of an overall program for solving the traffic circulation problem in central Athens.

In the U.K. one is exhorted on billboards to buy British, to fly British. So, with the consequent flight of the wealthy to the Bahamas and the Riviera, it’s surprising that some P.R. person hasn’t thought up the slogan, to die British.

The formal blessing at the inauguration of the new Athens College Theater on December 16 by the Reverend John Antonopoulos.

On November 2, new traffic measures went into effect whose complexity is equal to that of shopping hours.

Only the Delphic sibyl at her most clearly equivocal could have accurately predicted it: not only did all the major parties in last month’s municipal elections claim to have won; they also claimed that their adversaries had lost.

The new Olympic Stadium just north of Athens was formally inaugurated on September 6 by President Karamanlis on the occasion of the XIII European Athletic Championships.

With the coming of August and the rising velocities of the meltemi which accompany it, forest and grass fires broke out again this year in many parts of the country.

A circular sent out by the Bank of Greece to all commercial banks in June stated that serious mistakes had been discovered in the collection of data upon which essential statistics are based.

As everyone knows, traffic congestion and environmental pollution in the Athens metropolitan area have become the besetting issues in the lives of about one-third of the nation’s citizens.

Though joggers are sometimes seen around Athens, singly or in pairs, the spirit of mass-running does not descend on the city’s inhabitants except during those formal Marathon meets which are generally international in character. It was doubtful, therefore, when Mayor Beis announced a popular “Circuit of Athens” event for May 9, whether it would awaken any widespread community response.