Ukrainian Village, like neighboring East Village began as farmland. Originally German Americans formed the largest ethnic group in the vicinity; however, by the turn of the century the neighborhood was largely Slavic. Similarly to the "Lithuanian Downtown" in the Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport, Ukrainians settled in the district because of their familiarity with Poles who lived in the surrounding Polish Downtown. Dense settlement of the neighborhood was largely spurred by the 1895 construction of an elevated train line along Paulina St (1700 W) that would later be decommissioned in 1964.