So begins the Homeric immigration tale of 91-year-old Rodi Kouthouridis…
1 min read“I came with a scissors and $200. And I didn’t speak English.”
So begins the Homeric immigration tale of 91-year-old Rodi Kouthouridis. She labored in Boston’s sewing factories for years before opening in the Theatre District the first of what would become a small chain of dry cleaners in the downtown, South Boston, and Beacon Hill.
Now, more than a half-century after her arrival, the scissors Kouthouridis brought from her Greek community in Soviet-era Georgia are mounted on the wall of Crown Cleaners at 127 Charles St. But she remains hard at work behind her antique Singer sewing machine, hemming dresses and bantering with her longtime Beacon Hill clientele, an enduring presence in the family dry cleaning business she now runs with her daughter and granddaughter. […]