Greeks and other Orthodox Christians founded church

A 1915 photo of Cost S. Vafiades (cq) with his son Jerry and and their cart from which they sold fruit and other goods in downtown Bangor. ( Photo/ Courtesy of Arthur and Maria Brountas)

By Wayne ReillyThursday, December 06, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

Greek-owned businesses dotted the Bangor area through much of the 20th century. They included Alex Vardamis’ Fruit Store, George and Chris Floris’ Fruit Store, Cost Vafiades’ filling station on Hammond Street, the Apollo, the White Tower, The Palace of Sweets, Peter’s Spa, Vafiades’ and Voudoukis’ dance halls, the G and L Variety Store in Hampden Highlands, University Lunch, the Atlantic Sea Grill, Jonason’s Ice-cream Parlor, the Pickwick, Maine Equipment Co. Inc., the Sandwich Shoppe, the Dutch Tea Room, the New Atlantic, John’s Cafe, the Skoufis Variety Store, the Pine Tree, the Sub Shop, Crosby’s, Peter’s Candlelighter and Spiro’s Shoe Hospital.

Click here for the Ethnic Bangor interactive map.

The list is in a commemorative book published by the St. George Greek Orthodox Church on its 50th anniversary in 1980.

George N. Brountas was the proprietor of the first of these businesses and probably Bangor’s first Greek immigrant settler. He came from Boston in 1897 and operated a pushcart, selling fruit and other items between Bangor and the University of Maine in Orono. Friendly and outgoing, he was popular with the college students, who were surprised to find out they could talk to him about Plato and Aristotle. Sometimes they invited their professors out of the classroom to meet him before buying nearly everything on his cart.

Next, George opened a store on Broad Street in the heart of downtown, where he sold fruit and candy "in the form of the Cony island chewing type," according to an old newspaper article. He moved his business around to 68 Main St. in 1903 and opened the Bangor Candy Kitchen, a fixture there until 1941 when he renamed it Brountas’ Restaurant to reflect its expanding service. The Taste of India operates there today.

George’s brother Peter came from Greece to work in the Bangor Candy Kitchen in 1907. By then there were only 16 Greek immigrants in the Queen City, according to the U.S. Census of 1910. Most of them, including members of the Brountas, Skoufis and Limberis families, came from the neighborhood around the Greek village of Vamvakou, an impoverished area on a mountainside near Sparta where the soil was poor for agriculture and people raised goats. Many more Greek families were to come.

Peter wanted to open a business of his own. By 1918 he and two friends, George and John Skoufis, had the capital to start up The Palace of Sweets on Main Street near the Bangor Candy Kitchen. The Palace was located in a long, narrow space with glass cases containing cakes and candies on each side, a white marble soda fountain in front of a large mirror, and small tables lined up at the back. An oriental rug ran along the floor, and Victorian lamps and a large fan hung from the tin ceiling.

An "automatic organ" that had cost more than $3,000 and "magnificent paintings" made the spot an attractive retreat for shoppers and theatergoers after a show, according to an article accompanied by a photograph in an advertising brochure in 1924.

Greeks were known for retaining a fierce pride in their culture after coming to America, and these young entrepreneurs were no exception, endowed "with the conquering spirit of their great hero Alexander the Great," the piece said.

But even Alexander wouldn’t have been able to keep The Palace of Sweets going during the Depression. Ever resourceful, Peter started another business, a fruit stand, on the corner of Main and Union streets, where the Brountas family still does business today. The fruit stand became Peter’s Spa. After Peter died suddenly, Arthur, his son, took over the business and soon added the Greyhound bus ticket franchise as passenger train service was declining and bus systems were consolidating. The terminal became Bangor’s transportation hub.

"Often I’d wait on a customer, cook the meal and serve it, sell the person a ticket and carry bags out to the bus," Arthur told a Bangor Daily News reporter when he retired from the ticket desk in 1992. Soon after Arthur acquired the bus business, his brother George joined him in a partnership that lasted 30 years. In 1962, they separated the restaurant — renaming it Peter’s Candlelighter — from the bus station. They bought the McGuire Block, where the businesses were located, and other nearby property for a bigger terminal and parking. Today, it has evolved into the Bangor Bus Terminal and the Main Tavern run by Arthur’s son, Peter.

In 1956, Arthur married Maria Gianibas, who had grown up living over her parents’ store on Tremont Street in Boston. She spoke only Greek when she entered school. In Bangor, she would be named Teacher of the Year and recipient of a Jefferson Award. Together Arthur and Maria appeared last fall at the Penobscot Valley Senior College class "Into the Melting Pot" to talk about the experience of Greek immigrants in Bangor.

"We’re the oldest family-run business in downtown Bangor," said Arthur.

Some of the businesses persist, but the church is the proudest legacy of the Greeks in Bangor and one of the best symbols of Bangor’s diverse origins. Sixty-five individuals and families — from Apostolides to Zoidis — contributed to the St. George Greek Orthodox Church building fund in 1930. Besides the majority Greeks, people from Albania, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Serbia and Lebanon — 35 or 40 in number — all of whom shared the Orthodox Christian faith, were among its members when it opened on Sanford Street, according to a piece in the Bangor Daily Commercial on Aug. 4, 1930.

Their faith and enthusiasm are reflected today in the church’s striking icons and stained-glass windows, though Peter Brountas’ homemade candy and spotless soda fountain, which helped raise the money to build it, are long gone.

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