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A Chronicle of Agiou Mina Street

Agiou Mina Street defined the northern boundary of the Jewish neighborhood of Tophane. It hosted fish shops and the public fish warehouse (Balikhane). At the time, dependencies (metochia) of the Mount Sinai Monastery, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Pantokratoros Monastery and the Monastery of Megisti Lavra, with their own warehouses and stables, were also located in the courtyard of Agios Minas, which by then was already a parish church and may have been previously a monastery. A court record from 1703 reveals the existence of Jewish-owned properties on the plot currently occupied by the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki.

After the fish shops moved to a different location, they were replaced by workshops and stables. That time also saw the opening of Thessaloniki’s first printing press. Agiou Mina Street remained the northern boundary of the Jewish neighborhood of Tophane, and still hosted the metochia of the Mount Sinai Monastery and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Furthermore, four Jewish properties were identified in the plot currently occupied by the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki.

In 1904, the Jewish Community built the Cedid Han (new building)

 in an effort to secure revenue to fund the community’s schools. The Orthodox Community did the same, building the Agios Minas commercial arcade, which was completed in 1910. The two arcades contained banks, department stores, newspaper offices, printers and stationary stores: “…and so, this lackluster, inelegant and underdeveloped street of fish shops, developed the character of a proper High Street“.

This period saw the opening of Ionos Dragoumi Street, which rendered part of the Agios Minas arcade useless. In 1927, the tram line was moved to Tsimiski Street and crossed Agiou Mina Street. The banks were relocated to the new central streets created under the city’s new Urban Plan, with Agiou Mina Street now occupied by tailor shops. It is noteworthy that both before and after the war, several clothing retailers and manufacturers whose businesses were previously located in the old commercial center, chose to relocate to Agiou Mina Street. Stationery shops and printers remained.

In 1954, the tramway was removed from Tsimiski Street, which in turn became part of the national road network. One by one, due to a lack of business successors, the old tailor shops closed; of the six confectioneries and five stationery shops of Tsimiski Street, only one out of each remained open. The inability to make good use of the Agios Minas arcade led to the desertion of the street. The establishment of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki and the Bookstore of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation brought new life to the street.

Thanks to pedestrianization and redevelopment, Agiou Mina entered a new phase in its history, while the Jewish Museum expanded into one more wing of the Cedid Han.

 The old fish shops and monastic dependencies, the stables and the old Tsimiski street, the numerous tailors and confectioneries, stationery shops and newspapers, have now all faded from memory …

… only an imperceptible feeling persists, that everything here used to be different, and that the street is now being brought back to life.