Greek Toronto History: Early Arrivals, 1950s Wave, Greektown

Greeks settled in downtown Toronto from the late nineteenth century, and about 3,000 lived in the city in 1914. After the anti-Greek riot of August 1918 the community moved east over time, and a second wave of migrants in the 1950s and 1960s made the Danforth its centre. The street signs there became bilingual in 1982, and the business association took the name GreekTown on the Danforth in 1993.

The first Greeks downtown

York University’s Hellenic Heritage Foundation Greek Canadian Archives, in its “Making of Greektown” project, says the first Greeks settled downtown in the later part of the nineteenth century. They lived mainly between Yonge Street and Church Street, and between Dundas and Carlton streets. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes the same district, bounded by Jarvis, Yonge, Carlton and Dundas streets, as home to most of the city’s Greek residents and their businesses.

Heritage Toronto, in an essay by Elizabeth Compa published in 2023, puts the community at about 3,000 people in 1914, under 1 per cent of a city of roughly 500,000. Greek owners ran about 35 per cent of Toronto’s restaurants, along with many grocery stores and shoe-shine parlours. Restaurants clustered along Yonge Street between Queen and Bloor streets and along Queen Street West.

Individual families give a sense of the dates. Heritage Toronto mentions a father who came from Greece around 1910 and another who arrived in the early 1920s. The sources used here give no overall timeline for arrivals before 1914 and no count by year.

August 1918

The community’s early history was marked by the anti-Greek riot of August 1918. Greece was neutral in the First World War until 1916, and Canada did not let Greek immigrants enlist during that period, according to the Toronto Public Library’s local history blog. Mobs attacked Greek restaurants and shops downtown from August 2 to 5, the Canadian Encyclopedia says. The full account, including the places where sources disagree, is in the article on the anti-Greek riot of 1918, and the wartime background is in the article on Toronto in the First World War.

Greek community leaders answered with a public statement of support for the Allies. They said more than 2,000 Greek-Canadians had served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, with five killed and ten incapacitated. The Library’s blog says the riots eventually drove the community out of its Yonge Street neighbourhood and east to Danforth Avenue.

The move east and the 1950s wave

The move was gradual. Heritage Toronto notes that one woman it interviewed grew up along the Danforth in the 1920s and 1930s, so some Greek families were already living there before the war. The Danforth had been opened up by the Bloor Viaduct, which the Prince Edward Viaduct article describes, and by the subway line covered in the Bloor-Danforth subway article.

The big change came after the Second World War. York University’s news site reported in 2004 that many Greeks arrived in the 1950s as labourers, part of a southern European movement that followed the Greek civil war of 1945 to 1949. The York archive project likewise records a second wave of migrants in the 1950s and 1960s who established themselves on Danforth Avenue. The same period saw large Italian migration, described in the Italian Toronto article, and the policy background appears in the article on postwar immigration to Toronto.

Counting the Greeks of the Danforth

The City of Toronto’s Danforth historic context statement of March 2021 notes that published census bulletins for the 1950s and 1960s did not record Greek origin. As a stand-in, it uses membership in the Greek Orthodox Church, which was under 5 per cent of the Danforth study area’s population in 1961 and 15 per cent in 1971. The statement links continued Greek emigration in the early 1970s to the Greek military junta of 1967, which led to seven years of military rule.

By 1976 a Globe and Mail article was calling the strip “Little Athens,” the statement says, and it repeats a figure of 30,000 Greek immigrants living near Danforth Avenue at that time. That number comes from press reporting and is not a census count. The sources opened for this article give no church-by-church history, so the names and founding dates of Greek Orthodox parishes are not stated here. The Greektown business association’s directory lists places of worship among the services on the avenue.

Institutions and culture

Community life took many forms. The City’s statement mentions two Greek music venues of the 1970s: the Trojan Horse Coffee House, which was devoted to Greek music, and the Fantasia Bouzouki Lounge, an after-hours coffeehouse with live bouzouki music. York’s news site reports that the community quickly developed a professional and merchant class and quotes historian Thomas Gallant calling it one of the city’s most successful ethnic groups. A chair in modern Greek history at York was funded by a $2.5 million endowment raised largely within the Greek business community.

The Hellenic Heritage Foundation, founded in Toronto in 1996 by professionals of Hellenic descent, says its mission is to preserve and promote Hellenic education, culture and heritage in Canada. Its history committee runs events and walking tours, including one on the 1918 riots. Heritage Toronto says the foundation led the 2018 centennial commemorations and developed a school curriculum on the riot.

Greektown on the Danforth

The business association has changed names over time, and sources differ on its start. The City statement says the Danforth Village Business Improvement Area was established in 1972, from Hampton to Woodycrest Avenue. The GreekTown on the Danforth website says the area was established in August 1981 as the Danforth Village BIA. The bilingual blue-and-white Greek and English street signs went up in 1982, according to both. The City says the area apparently began to be called “Greektown” in 1986, and the association itself records that its board lobbied City Hall to adopt the name in June 1993. The City adds that in 1994 the renamed association started the Taste of the Danforth.

The festival has had a stop-and-start recent history. NOW Toronto reported on August 11, 2025 that it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19 restrictions, again in 2022, returned in 2023, and was cancelled in 2024 and 2025. It said the association had not explained the 2025 cancellation and had not confirmed a 2026 festival. Check with the association before planning a visit. For the street itself, read the article on the Danforth and Greektown.

The Greek community in recent census data

The City of Toronto’s ward profile for Toronto-Danforth, adapted from the 2021 census, gives a sense of the community’s present size in that part of the east end. Greek was the eighth largest ethnic or cultural origin in the ward, reported by 7,020 people, or 3.7 per cent of origins reported. Greek was also the third most common mother tongue after English and Cantonese, with 4,020 speakers, or 3.8 per cent of the ward. People can report more than one origin, so the figures overlap with others.

The profile covers one ward, not the whole city, and does not describe the Greek communities in the west end or the suburbs. The wider immigration story is in the article on the immigration history of Toronto.

Frequently asked questions

When did Greeks first settle in Toronto?

York University’s Greek Canadian Archives says the first Greeks settled downtown in the later part of the nineteenth century, mainly between Yonge and Church streets. Heritage Toronto puts the community at about 3,000 people in 1914.

Why did Greeks move to the Danforth?

The Toronto Public Library says the 1918 riots eventually drove the community east from Yonge Street. A second wave of migrants in the 1950s and 1960s then settled on Danforth Avenue, according to York University.

When did the Danforth get the name Greektown?

The City of Toronto says it apparently began to be used in 1986. The business association adopted GreekTown on the Danforth as its name in June 1993.

When did Taste of the Danforth begin?

The City of Toronto says the GreekTown on the Danforth association started it in 1994. NOW Toronto reported cancellations in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025.

How many Greeks lived near the Danforth in the 1970s?

A figure of 30,000 Greek immigrants in 1976 appears in press reports repeated by the City. It is not a census count.

Sources

Hellenic Heritage Foundation Greek Canadian Archives, York University, “The Making of Greektown” (accessed October 2026)
Heritage Toronto, Elizabeth Compa, essay on the 1918 anti-Greek riot and Yonge Street memory (2023)
Laura Neilson Bonikowsky, “Toronto Feature: Anti-Greek Riots,” The Canadian Encyclopedia (2013, edited 2015)
Toronto Public Library, local history blog, “Remembering the 1918 Anti-Greek Riot” (August 3, 2018)
YFile, York University, “Greeks among Toronto’s most successful ethnic groups” (August 16, 2004)
City of Toronto, Danforth Avenue Complete Street and Planning Study, Historic Context Statement (March 2021)
GreekTown on the Danforth BIA, history page (accessed October 2026)
NOW Toronto, “Taste of the Danforth was cancelled again” (August 11, 2025)
City of Toronto, Ward Profile: Toronto-Danforth, adapted from Statistics Canada, Census 2021 (2024)

Last verified: October 2026

Cite this page

APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 31). Greek Toronto History: From Yonge Street to the Danforth. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/greek-toronto-history

MLA: “Greek Toronto History: From Yonge Street to the Danforth.” History of Toronto, 31 Oct 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/greek-toronto-history. Accessed .

Chicago: History of Toronto. “Greek Toronto History: From Yonge Street to the Danforth.” Last modified October 31, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/greek-toronto-history.

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