Students in the town of Greece in the state of New York attend schools with names such as Athena, Olympia, Arcadia, and Odyssey, compete as Spartans, Trojans, and Titans, and travel along streets in the USA whose names appear to have been extracted directly from the ancient Greek world and transplanted into the other side of the world.
Here, we are not referring to the well-known Mediterranean country with the millennia of vibrant history but a town on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, just outside Rochester, New York. More than two centuries after the Town of Greece, New York, was established during the Greek War of Independence, its unusual connection with the country thousands of miles away still remains deeply rooted in the identity of this beautiful and quiet American community.
Why is there a town called Greece in New York?
The name of the town emerged during a wave of American sympathy for Greeks fighting for independence from Ottoman Turkish rule in the early nineteenth century. The New York State Legislature divided the existing Town of Gates on March 22, 1822 (almost a year after the beginning of the Greek War of Independence), establishing the new Town of Greece. The change formally went into effect on April 1 of that year.
It was a time when the Greek struggle for independence had attracted considerable attention and sympathy in the United States as well as across the Western world. According to local tradition, the name Greece was selected for the town in the USA as an expression of support for the revolution of the Greeks, a nation that was trying to find its former identity after having been dominated by foreign rule for centuries.
The Greece Historical Society considers this the most probable explanation, although it notes that no surviving original document has yet been found explicitly stating why lawmakers selected the name. Today, the Town of Greece is a major suburb of Rochester with more than 96,000 residents.
Greek names are everywhere in Greece, New York
The town’s connection with Greece became particularly apparent over a century later, when rapid suburban expansion transformed the area following World War II. As the population grew, new schools were needed.
When Greece began constructing its high schools, starting with Olympia in the late 1950s, local officials persisted with the town’s Greek theme by giving the new schools names inspired by Greece and the classical world. Today, the Greece Central School District includes Athena High School, Arcadia High School, Olympia and Odyssey Academy, as well as Athena and Arcadia middle schools. The theme did not stop at the school gates, however.
Roads surrounding the schools were given names such as Olympia Drive, Arcadia Parkway, and Athena Drive, spreading references to Greece across the region.
The schools themselves developed identities filled with further references to Greek history and mythology. At Olympia, students are the Spartans, and the school refers to its community as the “Spartan Family.” Students at Athena High School compete as the Trojans, while those at Arcadia High School are the Titans. Athena’s crest makes the connection particularly visible. Its design incorporates a classical helmet, the columns of an ancient temple, and a burning torch.
Odyssey Academy, meanwhile, has a name immediately recognizable from Homer’s Odyssey, one of the foundational works of ancient Greek literature.
Arcadia High School and the rapid growth of the town of Greece in the USA
A historic photograph from 1968 offers a glimpse into the extraordinary period during which the USA’s modern Town of Greece, New York, was taking shape. It shows Greece Arcadia High School, located at 120 Island Cottage Road, only a few years after the school opened. Arcadia was built in 1962 at a cost of approximately $3 million and welcomed its first students in September 1963. The school was part of a remarkable construction boom. Over a period of roughly ten years around this era, Greece built more than nine schools to accommodate its rapidly expanding population.
The 1968 photograph captures a distinctly postwar American scene, with long rows of cars parked outside the relatively new school. The Mother of Sorrows Church can also be seen in the background. Arcadia continues to serve students in Greece today, although the building has undergone renovations in the decades since it opened. The Greek names emerged at precisely the moment when a once largely agricultural community was being transformed into one of Rochester’s largest suburbs.
Greek symbols on the town’s flag
References to Greece can also be found on one of the town’s most important official symbols. The Town of Greece flag, adopted in 1954, features an emblem centered on the historic Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse.
The lighthouse was built in 1822. This was the same year in which the Town of Greece itself was established. Although the lighthouse now stands within the Charlotte neighborhood of Rochester, Charlotte was originally part of the Town of Greece before being annexed by the city in 1916.
The town emblem places the lighthouse within a circular design intended to resemble the shield of an ancient Greek warrior. Decorative elements surrounding it were also inspired by Greek artistic patterns. The original colors of terra-cotta, golden yellow, and black were selected to evoke the appearance of ancient Greek pottery. A later blue-and-white version of the flag added another visual connection with modern Greece.
Greece remains part of the town’s identity
What began with the creation of the Town of Greece in New York in 1822 developed into something considerably more connected to Greece, despite its inhabitants not having direct Greek roots.
As the town expanded dramatically, new generations arrived, and the rural landscape surrounding Rochester became increasingly suburban, the Greek identity remained prominent in this American town.
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