More Than Meze

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

by Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

This year’s was the 46th edition of the Saints Constantine & Helen Downtown Brooklyn Greek Festival, a block party that occupies the whole of a little side street near Borough Hall for nearly the whole of a calendar week with each coming June.

Lamb sizzles on grills and baklava crunches in the mouths of passersby and local mainstays both. Children slurp ice cream and play tag and perform folkloric dance and their grown-up company clink glasses and recline beside half-eaten platters of souvlaki.

It is a celebration for both the internal and external communities associated with the church and its affiliated day school, A. Fantis, whose students run among the picnic tables set up in the street. Their seats were occupied with teachers and parents and relatives and working people from the nearby office buildings on lunch break, or the residents of newly constructed high rise buildings there to enjoy a glass of (Greek) wine with their neighbors by evening. Fantis graduates, home for summer break from university, supervise kebab grills and pour lemonade. Friends and relatives drive in from Long Island and New Jersey for an afternoon or a nighttime concert.

The Greek word parea means to be together in good spirits. “To sit, and hang out, and just enjoy each other’s company,” explains Evagoras Constantinides, the church reverend and day school dean, – (he goes by Father Ev) – “That’s the opportunity we want to offer.”

The whole of the New York City community, Greek or otherwise, could surely use a little more of that.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom
Festival Co-Chair and A. Fantis Alum Chris Argyriou with Reverend Evagoras Constantinides – (call him Father Ev)