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August 2024 by Basically just a bird now
Nice experience for $10 entry fee. Good variety of different artifacts on display, and rotating exhibits on different aspects of Greek-American cultural heritage. I thought it offered a good snapshot of different livelihoods, although it wasn't what I'd call hard hitting (which is perfectly fine, of course). If you have an hour or two, I would recommend it, at least to say you've seen it. (Full disclosure, I'm not Greek-American, so maybe this is much more of a revelation to people who share the heritage. I still thought it was a good time)
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August 2024 by Kassondra Andereck
I had this on a list of places to visit for my birthday weekend with my fiancee when I discovered it existed. I’m Greek on my mom’s side of the family and she was born and raised in Chicago, so I was hoping this museum would be special and meaningful, but it was a huge letdown. The main content of the museum was 1/3 coins, 1/3 Christian influence on Greek town, 1/3 museum executives bragging about themselves.
Nothing about Greek mythology, ancient civilization, or presence in popular culture, which I thought would have been the bare minimum of what would be expected. This was in Chicago, a city with a high Greek population, so being called the “National Hellenic Museum” suggests a certain level of quality and content, neither of which are at this museum. So disappointing. Please don’t waste your time or money on this joke.
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June 2024 by Nektarios Katsifarakis
Visiting the National Hellenic Museum was a joyful and highly informative experience. It has an emphasis on the Greek-American immigrant culture, in addition to various historical and mythological elements of Hellenism.
More than that, however, I discovered it to be very diverse and inclusive: I enjoyed seeing cultural connections with the African American civil rights movement, references to other ethnic and religious communities including Italian, Jewish, Armenian, Polish, Indo/Pak, Muslim, Irish, among others.
I walked into this museum today with my daughter to get further in touch with my Greek background - and I walked out feeling more connected to the entire world.
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May 2024 by Theodoros Ntallaris
The entrance cost 10$. I really liked the design of the building. Artistic and interesting exhibits but there is very little content and not so many artifacts. A lot of pictures related with the orthodox church
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April 2024 by Douggie Harrison
They should have chosen a different name. It's not a Hellenic Museum, it's supposed to be a Greek-American museum and it's barely that. It's basically a monument to the Greek Orthodox Church
Do not recommend unless you are heavily interested in the Greek Orthodox Church or a Greek person born in 1930.
The top donor's name looms over the entire second floor which is basically a collection of pixelated, pious, bearded Greek men in black garb with an insane amount of very uninteresting text. In the corner by the stairs, as if it was forgotten about, is the coin collection which is the only truly interesting thing in the building.
On the first floor they did a terrible job of telling the guests this was Greek-American, nearly completely unrelated to anything ancient and the weirdest thing is the photography compilation picturing different groups of random ethnic groups. Japanese, Mexican, Jewish. I don't know why this is in a Hellenic Museum, but less than 50% of the photo exhibition is of Greek anything.
Third floor is where I saw the Greek school for kids and a library, and some things from the 1940s as it is about Greek Americans. They have a baseball uniform of a random dude who played for a random non-pro team in Chicago and a a few articles of clothing and woven fabric. Interesting but 100% not worth $10 or the time it would take you to arrive there.
It seems they decided to execute the idea before truly planning what people would want to see. The first floor is completely empty and tells you nothing about the museum. The second floor is practically the largest donor's personal exhibit and 90% text. The third floor is mildly interesting but seems they could acquire hardly any artifacts so they just display anything Greek families donated. Could be so much better, a beautiful building and comfortable environment. Hope they can garner some better treasures to put on display in the future.
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January 2024 by Jasper Baur
There were two exhibits that really moved me: the interactive coin collection, and the immigrant exhibit. The coin display did a great job at conveying the history of coins and the role they played in Greek Global diplomacy. The immigrant exhibit has a really moving story of a WW2 veteran, and how he became the first naturalized citizen outside the US. The Orthodox exhibit is also nice too.
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September 2023 by Fatima O
Beautiful museum
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September 2023 by Otis B.
Very nice
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May 2023 by Steve A.
For sure there's a lot of museums in Chicago, with many of these focusing on countries and cultures. If you're Greek or into Greek stuff, this is one to check out. The National Hellenic Museum is about the art and history of Greek culture and whatever. A pretty modern looking building that's small by most museum standard but big enough to spend a couple hours in. You can get in for an admission that's not that much to be honest, and learn about the culture and mythology. Appropriately enough it's located in Greektown. It's on Halsted at Van Buren, close to the UIC campus and Greek restaurants. There's enough inside to spend awhile like a few hours or so. It's $10 admission for adults. Museum is bigger than it looks. Good stuff inside. The first floor includes photography exhibits of Greek culture by local photographers. On the second floor was an exhibit on Greek coins commissioned by Alexander The Great. The third floor is about the experience of Greek immigration. At the top of the museum is a rooftop that hosts special events. This is usually closed but if it's open there's a nice view of the city skyline. Getting here is actually pretty convenient. It's located close to the CTA Blue Line. There's also many bus routes so it's very accessible to those who use public transportation.
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February 2023 by Drew Batchelor
They don't really have any ancient Greek artifacts except coins, the whole museum is about Greeks in the 1900s and the Christian church, I really wanted to see some images of greek gods or statues but none of that was even there, they also had some spelling bee event on the first floor and I didn't even get to explore that floor at all because of the event, they should offer discounted tickets when events are going on, it was so loud they ruined the experience, it took me about 40 minutes to view EVERYTHING which wasn't much
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October 2022 by Christian Gentry
This museum is kinda disappointing. It is a beautiful museum with great design. The exhibits they do have are artisticly well done. But there is very little content. A lot of pictures but little artifacts. What history they do talk a out is very vague lacking details or personal stories.There js also a whole exhibit dedicated to the photos of the heir of a non existent monarchy?!It's also very empty. It's a very weird place.
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April 2022 by Marie Rowley
I attended an event at the National Hellenic Museum this weekend (the Homer-athon!) and had a blast! What a beautiful space, with a fun, professional staff committed to their mission of sharing Hellenic culture.
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October 2021 by Ollga Mourathdou
More museum, you're making fun of the world, come on, we didn't eat any records
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October 2020 by Teresa H
Informative
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October 2020 by Helen D
Find many Greek events, exhibits and connections! Then visit Greek Islands restaurant for a taste of Greece!
