Greek-Americans Devastated by Fires
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Residents of the city’s heavily Greek-American enclave of Astoria were anguished yesterday over fires that have raged through Greece and killed 63 people over four days.
“It is devastating,” a food importer who was eating lunch at a sidewalk cafe in the low-rise Queens neighborhood just across the East River from Manhattan, Thanasis Stafanidis, said. “From a distance you just pray.”
Dozens of fires have broken out in Greece since Friday, destroying forests and villages.
New York is home to 75,055 native-born and foreign-born Greek-Americans, the Department of Planning said.
