Petroupoli

There are two theories regarding the etymology of the word “Petroupoli”. According to the first one, the city was named after the Greek word “petra” (city of stone), as its subsoil is rocky and in the old times several quarries were active in the area. The most prevalent theory, however, supports the view that the town was named in honour of Peter A. Giannaros, founder of the Athenian newspaper “Esperini”. In the early 1930s, when his son, Alexandros Giannaros, took over, the readers were given lucky vouchers to acquire plots in the area.
The irreparable destruction of the natural environment and the urban sprawl was, in fact, what led me in 1979 to photograph an inactive quarry in Petroupoli, which in the past constituted a source of sustenance for the people and for the city that gradually spread around it.