Exploring Elefsina Pilot Sites Series 1: the Old Canteen

© John Kouskoutis

The Old Canteen of Eleusis, a renovated cultural space located in the city’s waterfront with the unique industrial sunset, a hub of activities for the educational and local community within the framework of the HeritACT project, bears an interesting history and many memories for the local community.

Built by the US 6th Fleet, which arrived in 1972 in Eleusis as part of a Greek-American agreement that provided home porting opportunities for Sixth Fleet ships, It was abandoned along with the fenced land area of the porting facilities two years later, remaining a closed, inactive building in the most infamous part of the city for more than a decade.

© John Kouskoutis

In the second half of the 1980s, the Old Canteen began operating as a municipal Canteen “where you could go with your family and enjoy the cool breeze and the view of the sea” an anonymous resident tells us in the HeritACT questionnaire.

That’s how it got its name and also passed into the collective memory of the city. According to the questionnaire, many Eleusinians describe their relationship with the old Canteen “a beautiful relationship that reminds of our childhood summers” or “a memory of childhood or adolescence”.

Alongside the Eleusis Cinema Club, its twin sibling from the same era, it has become known as “a place of meeting with friends for discussing the excellent films that we used to watch in the summers at the Cinema Club with great enthusiasm and passion. A cool getaway spot on hot summer evenings as it was right by the sea”.

After its renovation on the occasion of the European Capital of Culture, it became a place that hosts cultural events even more “it combines moments of relaxation, social interaction and cultural experience” testifies a younger neighbour.

However, there are voices arguing that the building “remains even today a closed, inactive and locked space”.