San Francisco had a Greek Town — and almost no one knows it existed.

South of Market Street, centered on 3rd Street, Greek Town was one of San Francisco’s most vibrant immigrant communities. It began with railroad workers recruited directly from Greece by the Southern Pacific Railroad for $1.60 a day. Many stayed, and in the aftermath of the devastating 1906 earthquake — which killed over 3,000 people and left 250,000 homeless — Greeks flooded into the city to help with the massive rebuilding effort.
By 1923, more than 11,500 Greeks lived in San Francisco, operating hundreds of businesses including the Acropolis Bar and Grill, the Constantinople Café, and the Smyrna Café along 3rd Street. Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, founded in 1903, was the first Greek Orthodox parish west of Chicago. The community also maintained a Greek consulate, a Greek American Hall, and a Greek-language school.
When construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge began in 1933 — opening November 12, 1936 — the infrastructure and displacement it brought to South of Market scattered the Greek community across the city. Greek Town was gone. Decades later, the Moscone Center’s construction in the 1960s and 70s erased most of what remained.
A plaque at 3rd and Folsom now marks where a whole world once stood.
Source: San Francisco Heritage; OpenSFHistory / Western Neighborhoods Project; Greek Historical Society of the San Francisco Bay Area; San Francisco Examiner, December 9, 1923
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