You’re Cleared to Land on Sycamore Drive
Decatur Metro | August 9, 2010 | 9:50 amFrom a recent Decatur Heights Neighborhood Association newsletter…
According to Peggy Merriss, Decatur’s City Manager, Sycamore Drive served as a runway for small planes before it was developed with homes.
Whaaaa?
Oh man, if only I was good with Photoshop.
Must have been before they installed all those new stop signs!
I thought the airstrip was on Forkner. But I guess Sycamore makes more sense.
When I first moved here, an old timer, Rudy Burke, told me stories about hanging out at a nearby airstrip that became our neighborhood. At the time I thought maybe he was confused about Peachtree Dekalb. Didn’t dream it was actually Sycamore. The trees around there seem to predate general aviation.
Wish we could get a plane to land on those bikes that guy on ADAIR parks in front of his house so that folks can’t park there and go to the park. Don’t know why the city allows him to do that AND chain them to his yard. Public has a right to park there. Oh…and he continued to water during the drought.
This is so off topic….sorry.
continuing off topic….we just need someone with a smart car to parallel park between the bikes
Unfortunately, there’s really nothing the City can do to keep him from doing what he’s doing– so he gets his little victory. It doesn’t keep people from parking, say, an inch or so from either bike, maybe even accidentally running them over, now does it?
Very true. I knew a new Dad who was so pissed at this guys actions he would lob a old, loaded baby diaper into this guys patch of sunflowers/tomatoes, etc. in that front yard every time he drove past. No more diapers now, though as the kid has grown up. But if anyone else has a baby in diapers…
Awesome. There’s a great example of two wrongs making a right, huh?
He may be a bit “eccentric”, but he always has a big hello for me. If you speak to him, he may give you a nice juicy tomato or some corn.
Mr. SAACJack, why does this old man make you so mad that you advocate throwing s### in his yard and knocking over his mailbox?
If you cannot park directly in front of his house, you may have to drive, what, 15 extra feet to find a spot. Relax man.
When i first saw that, i was just so curious as to what kind kind of person would do something like that? People do weird things, but that is just very very weird to me.
Seriously, can anyone explain this “don;t park in front of my home” phobia? Where on earth does it come from? It seems fairly common, though few take it to this extreme. You don’t own the street in front of your house. And what possible damage can be done by having a car parked there anyway?
Some people just refuse to grow up, apparently.
That’s an interesting question. Bringing us back to the topic, I live on Sycamore Drive, and I’ll admit that whenever a car parks on the street in front of our house, I feel like they’re invading my space. I get all antsy and feel beset upon. I don’t know why.
Same here… I hate it, especially when it is neighbors who park THEIR cars in front of my house while leaving their own curb clear.
Actually I kind of like it when the parked car is a high end, new model vehicle compared to what we drive. I like to pretend it’s ours!
AGH! This irks me to no end! Especially because the same folks also always block my mailbox!
( I do like the street calming/ “someone’s at home” benefits from the polite parking neighbors, so I encourage them to park there! )
In front of my house- not my @%#! mailbox!
My neighbor across the street’s friends ALWAYS park their cars in front of my house instead of theirs. AND they park in the exact middle so nobody else can park there. It’s so annoying.
On my street, maybe 1 in 20 if even that many houses have driveways so everyone parks on the st, i do get annoyed when i come home and its storming and i have to park a block away and walk back in the rain to my house. As any homeowner w/o a driveway would feel, when random people park infront of their house, I get annoyed.
Been pondering this. And then somewhat amusingly, someone parked in my street spot last night. I must admit I felt twinges of annoyance every time I looked outside.
I think it probably has something to do with most human beings loving predictability, and landownership nutures this, since we can pretty much control most of what goes on around us.
We dislike people parking in our spots, just as we dislike being stuck in traffic. Yes because it makes us late, but also because we have little control over it.
As a counterexample, folks in NYC may also like predictability, but they don’t get pissed when someone takes there spot on the street because they can expect it. (However, many do pay for parking spots which guarantees this same sort of predictability.)
Bottomline: we were never huge fans of the unpredictable to begin with and the general lack to interaction with public spaces in the present day exacerbates this fact.
Watering restrictions don’t apply to vegetable gardens, and he’s got a vegetable garden in his front yard. I live on Adair, and there’s always places for people to park on the street, despite his bicycles. Now, you may have to WALK a bit further to GET to the part of the park you like best. But there’s still plenty of places to park.
Or, here’s a thought, why don’t you just walk to the park and forget about parking?
Mostly I don’t want to look out my windows and see your car. I would like to see the view. Plus people are nasty with their litter-cigarette butts and bottles. They trample flower beds and shrubs. They open car doors and scratch my trees. Not to mention the drunken loud voices at 2 am when the party breaks up.
Shall I list any more?
I see your point, and I feel the same way sometimes…its hard not to. But I also realize that the asphalt in front of my house is not mine…nor is about 8′ of grass and plants from the gutter towards my house really…its all public ROW.
In the end…the guy with the bikes is just being a bit of a tool. But if we can park our cars in the street, he can park his bikes i guess.
I do like the dirty diaper idea though!!!!!!
Maybe the kids knocking mailboxes down should aim for the bikes!
Mostly I don’t want to look out my windows and see your car.
________________
OK, but maybe a major metro area isn’t exactly for you, in that case. Lots of people live here and many of them have cars. I think that you’re going to have to see them, and they may sometimes obstruct your view of . . . the house across the street, I guess?
Maybe DM should just make a new thread on these bikes, and parking rights in general…wonder how long it would become…!
Just randomly came across two WPA pics of Sycamore being paved back in 1936. Talk about rural! Here are the links:
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/wpa/infrastructure/wpaga215.jpg
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/wpa/infrastructure/wpaga211.jpg
Also, some cool pics of Water Street…
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/wpa/infrastructure/wpaga209.jpg
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/wpa/infrastructure/wpaga210.jpg
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/wpa/infrastructure/wpaga212.jpg
Wow, those are awesome pictures. My house on Sycamore was built about 4 years after they were taken.
Awsome!
In all the Sycamore Drive street improvements talk, we’ve never discussed UNpaving the road! That might be just the ticket!
Great photos!
Unpaving Sycamore might actually be an improvement over its current, pothole-ridden state. Cycling down the street is like navigating a minefield of bumps and holes, most of which are sufficient to send you over to Bike South for wheel repairs should you hit them.
Fred is our commissioner. We like to help him out! Cha-ching!
Sycamore Drive (& area) is one of the next streets David Junger has on his list to tackle. It might not be feasible to pave it anytime soon because of all the utilities repairs needed. But we’ll ask. Improving the street for Decatur’s biking folks is definitely on the “to do” list of things up for consideration. So if I send up a flare that there’s a special cyclists’ meeting for it, please pedal over- very slowly- and weigh in!
… Although I do love a good dirt road! Think we can get the required signatures for it?!
I wouldn’t want to help out Fred Boykin if my life depended on it.
You could go out one night & fill in all the potholes! That’d sure show him!
Why not?
What do you think that brick building is in picture 1 & 3? Could it be the Ponce de Leon School that is now the post office? Separately, years back I did research about my neighborhood that can be found at http://www.glennwoodestates.org/History.aspx . At the time, I recall Walter. McCurdy telling me that the airfield used to be called Candler Field & ran adjacent to .Forkner I know that sounds crazy since Candler was in Inman Park. Anyway, you see by the tree growth on Forkrner is mostly Pines & very flat, so you can imagine those pines propagated shorty after the field was replaced with a neighborhood. Maybe?
Do you guys have a listerve. A friend just moved over there.
yep, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/glennwoodestates/
I can’t figure it out either. It’d be so cool to have a series of reminiscing & history telling nights from Decatur senior citizens. Our little City has super interesting tales all over! A few of our Decatur Heights senior neighbors grew up right here in the neighborhood – several are still in their childhood homes. I love hearing what they used to do & how the neighborhood used to look!
I ‘d really love to know the Beacon Hill area stories too. The stuff learned on here & at the recent Beacon Hill Master Plan public input night has been fascinating. It’d be wonderful to hear about the old surrounding neighborhood straight from the heritage folks. A couple of folks have shared a story or two with me since- making me want to hear much more!
A few years back at the Black History Month Decatur Business Association program, Mayor Wilson did gather a few old time Beacon Hill residents to tell how it was. Riveting !
It’s too bad no one thought of organizing a StoryCorp group. I believe they are still doing Atlanta, but it would take some serious time to organize.
Just saw that Eagle Eye Books is hosting an author night for the following: a history book about the City of Decatur. Arcadia Publishing is releasing the Images of America: Decatur at Eagle Eye on Saturday, August 14th at 4:30. Author Joe Earle looks forward to meeting you and answering questions about the city which was founded in 1823.
Cool beans! Thanks for letting us know!
Candler Field was the original name of what has grown into Hartsfield-Jackson.
ok, must have been crossed wires in my head. sorry
I’m not sure whether this is urban myth, but I have heard that the building along N. Arcadia where Momo (?) automotive is located was an airplane hangar. Makes sense with its proximity to Sycamore. Plus, check out the curved airplane hangar-esque roof line!
The guy that parks his bike and water during droughts can also be seen from time to time shooting squirrels with a slingshot. It’s crazy coots like that that make me love my neighborhood.
Are you kidding?
thanks for sharing the pics and history!! would love to see / listen to stories… I miss my older neighbors, there are fewer and fewer of them to listen too.
maybe i should buy some bikes to perm. park infront of my house lol. that way i’d always have a parking spot when i came home
And you’d be guaranteed frequent mention here on Decatur Metro! :0)
When you came home from work on your bike right?