Psyrri was the name Ottoman Turks gave to people from the island of Psara, many of whom had settled here. It used to be a neighborhood of cobblers, leather workers, ruffians and skilled craftsmen. In the 1990s, it began to change and acquired a vivid nightlife, centered on live music venues playing mostly Greek folk, as well as a few quality theaters, clubs and, of course, sundry bars, restaurants and original meze joints.

In the 2000s, the daytime crowd started to disappear and the ground-floor shops emptied of workshops and skilled laborers. Psyrri went through a bad patch, but many of its original charms have remained intact: its originality, sense of fun, good music, a young crowd that hasn’t given up on it, Athens’s only female cobbler – Mrs Eleni – and, surprisingly, the Bohemian crowd. I found a group of them squashed together at the small tables of a classic Greek kafeneio (cafe) in the middle of the day, drinking coffee and beer, listening to bouzouki, live and unplugged.