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ATHENS -- Gerasimos Spinos opened his kiosk on the dowdy square outside the Kato Patissia train station last summer, when the Olympics-sanctioned makeover had just begun.

Spinos is a skeptical man, but he expected the best. His new business address, in an old neighborhood in densely populated central Athens, badly needed the face lift.

The citywide beautification project tagged to the 2004 Games would transform the square’s broken sidewalks into an arty park and the station’s musty innards into a clean, almost Parisian platform dotted with neat rows of metallic chairs. Contractors hired by the Piraeus-Kifissia urban electric railway promised Spinos and others around the square that workers would toil around the clock to finish by this August. The Games start Aug. 13.

But as the months rolled by and the square still looked disemboweled, Spinos got anxious. Workers cordoned off a giant work zone, boxing Spinos and his new kiosk into a hard-to-see corner. A film of cement dust covered his neatly stacked rows of chocolate bars and apple-flavored chewing gum. His business dropped 75 percent. Angry, he recently sued the railway for damages.

“I have very little faith that they will finish this on time,” says Spinos, who is 29 and an Athens native. “This is Greece, after all. But it’s ridiculous how long this is taking. The rest of us have work to do, too.”

Greece has spent millions of euros building dozens of Olympic venues and is spending millions more to remodel Athens for the 2004 Games. So far, the fruits are impressive: a modern new airport, national highways, a new train and subway system, and the refurbishing of run-down neighborhoods.

But the 24-hour growl, drill, and rattle of the massive project has also exhausted the city, especially in the hot summer. Olympic organizers had to rush to finish Olympic venues, leaving little time for the ambitious makeover of the city. Though construction workers will continue on projects such as the Kato Patissia stop, Athens officials are now planning to cover any unfinished business with banners.

Meanwhile, they are asking Athenians to be patient. “Athens is changing,” says a poster bearing a hard-hat-wearing cartoon man, placed in bus stops around the city. “This is a public work that you are living.”

The proclamation inspires both hope and bitterness in Kato Patissia, a crossroads of old and new Athens.

The neighborhood dates back to 1881, when Athens was still a small town and the railroad connecting it to the neighboring port town of Piraeus was new. Now there is no border between Athens and Piraeus, and the train is connected to the city’s new subway and train system. Greeks and natives of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Morocco live in the cigarette-box-shaped apartment buildings close to one of Kato Patissia’s main drags, Acharnon Street. At midday, lemony baked chicken and spicy curry scent the tinny city air.

Roula Paspati co-owns the New Style hair salon next to the Kato Patissia station square. Her salon sits on high ground and is easy to spot, so she likes the remodeling. Besides, she says, the square had looked gloomy and run-down for so long. She even likes the strange eggplant-colored column — a commissioned work of art that will light up at night — that will become the square’s centerpiece.

“This is going to be great,” she says. “We have been wanting this to happen here for a long time.”

Her customers, including the owner of a photography studio down the road, are not so sure. Business owners at the foot of the new station are obstructed by a giant cement wall that makes them virtually invisible to commuters — their best customers.

Last year, Panagiota and Kostas Antoniou opened a jewelry store there that showcased their handmade crafts — Kostas’s Byzantine-style silver jewelry and Panagiota’s delicate beaded bracelets. They installed air conditioning, and their artist son painted a pretty blossoming flower on the ceiling.

But since the cement wall went up, no one comes to the store. They can’t cover their expenses. They wonder if they should go back to selling their jewelry in the seaside town of Porto Rafti, even though they are both past retirement age.

Panagiota says she feels like they are encased in a “cementopolis.” “The world has lost us,” says Kostas bitterly.

Inside, the station shows signs of progress. The platform and metal chairs are already there, and a new ticket window is almost finished. Greek police officers watch over the work, passing miniskirt-wearing teenage girls who are busily text-messaging their friends.

The only sign of rebellion comes from a local anarchist group, which has spray-painted “Destroy the Olympics” in black above one of the station’s entrances.

Meanwhile, on the bit of finished pavement on higher ground, two Bangladeshi street vendors who live in small rooms on Acharnon Street set up their tables of silver jewelry and coconut-infused incense. They share the space with a weathered Greek fruit vendor in a fisherman’s hat who sells bags of apricots for one euro per kilo to three women with bleached hair and Russian accents.

Rosan Ali, who is 28, has lived in Athens for five years, while Altaf Hossain, who is 21, arrived nine months ago. Both men are from Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, where work was so scarce they had to leave.

“But we come here every day, and there is no work,” Ali says.

“We will finish in a week,” says George Christianis, 39, who has been working on the site for a year. “Have some patience. This is the biggest work Athens has seen in a while.”

He says he hears complaints every day, especially about the newly-installed artwork. They snicker at its phallic overtones and say it’s too ugly for Athens. One middle-age man in a rumpled suit and citified accent asks: Couldn’t you people have put up something celebrating our ancient past?

Christianis shrugs, then spins some optimism: “We’re going to put a park here where people can play with their kids and drink coffee. People will finally be able to relax in this tiring city.“

Spinos considers this remark without enthusiasm. Instead, he resumes reading “We Can Build You,” the 1972 novel by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

The dust from the cement-making has coated his kiosk again, and he waits for the day when he doesn’t have to wipe it away.