Our Town

Mustapha Kemal, on whom the Turkish Grand National Assembly conferred the title of Ataturk (Father of the Turks), was born in Selanik in 1881.

Every city gets the Cultural Center it deserves. London has its South Bank, New York its Lincoln Center, Paris its Beaubourg and Athens has what some people say is the prettiest of all – a beautiful green area in the center of the city where old people sit and young people play.

On April 13 the Minister of Planning and Environment George Plytas revealed the most extensive redevelopment plan in recent times for the areas surrounding antiquities of central Athens.

According to the old fabulist Apollodorus, during the Battle of the Giants which took place at a time not precisely known, the goddess Athena heaved a piece of mountain at the giant Encelatus, son of Earth, which flattened him out like a pancake whereupon he was incarcerated under Mount Etna.

Athens has at least a dozen daily newspapers of varying political hue, and if one had the pattience, the stamina or the curiosity to glance over this rainbow on Friday, February 13, one could only conclude that on the day previous Frederika of Greece had been subjected to at least a dozen funerals.

The official ceremony observing Greece’s entry into the Common Market took place in the Central Hall of the Old Parliament building at 11:00 a.m. on January 3.

On the eve of Greece’s official entry into the European Economic Community, the pageantry that had surrounded the formal signing of the Treaty of Accession at the Zappeion in May, 1979 seemed like distant history. Even the official statements of a few months back that Greece would spend most of December celebrating the imminent event “with uncontrollable kefi” seemed out-of-date.

THE riot on November 16 which followed a peaceful demonstration in Athens commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Polytechnic massacre left one dead, scores injured, and hundreds arrested.

“BRING forth the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.” So spoke the father of the Prodigal Son with the cheerful confidence that prevailed in an era before science started mucking around with our food.

IN AUGUST 1975 a play called A Greek Today caused a sensation on the Athenian Stage. Among its many scenes, priests were depicted carrying Junta banners, a shipowner was shown strangling his wife, and a Lesbian episode introduced nudity for the first time in the local theater.