Okto [Eight] Street

Okto Street used to be the main thoroughfare of the refugee settlement, the city’s main commercial road, but also a meeting spot, a place for strolling and recreation. The residents spent their free time there, visiting its cafés and wine taverns in the evenings, on Sundays, and holidays.

Nowadays, despite its pedestrianisation and the stores and restaurants that have opened along it, Panagi Tsaldari Street, as it is now known, looks nothing like it used to in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. The dark windows of shuttered shops, the abandoned refugee houses, the renovated buildings, and the new small shops that keep cropping up compose an image of constant change, reflecting the new circumstances that seem to be mostly affecting the original refugee building cluster.  

In 1955, the Nikaia Trade Association produced the commercial spot posted below. It was shown in cinemas and aimed to encourage consumers to shop locally in order to boost the city’s economy. In the short video, we can see how different the settlement’s commercial centre was in 1955.

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