Greek merchants supplying the British Army played an early and central role in the establishment of Juba in the early 1920s. Their number never exceeded 2,000, but because of their excellent relationship with the native Bari people and the large amount of resulting assistance they received, they built many structures in the downtown Juba Market area as well as in the area which the contemporary British soldiers called the Greek Quarter, today the small suburb of Hai Jalaba. Many of these structures are still standing today. Public buildings such as the Ivory Bank, Notos Lounge, the old Sudan Airways Building, Paradise Hotel, and the Nile Commercial Bank and Buffalo Commercial Bank were all built by Greeks. Greek merchants were responsible for the construction of the Central Bank building in the mid 1940s, as well as the Juba Hotel in the mid 1930s.