National Hellenic Museum — Attraction in West Chicago Township

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...

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...

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...