Decatur as a Grid
Decatur Metro | September 27, 2011 | 2:57 pm
Jon at The Midtown Archive sends along this most excellent pic of Decatur Square from 1961, which shows the actual “square” around the old Courthouse, and the generally more grid-like nature of the rest of the city’s layout prior to the great RENEWAL of the late 60s and 70s.
This is actually the first time I’ve seen a photo of the buildings that once sat along West Courthouse Square (where the Birds From Hell building now stands) and of the commercial buildings that were taken out by the new DeKalb Courthouse.
From what I can tell, this photo is shot looking in a northwesterly direction.
What is that awesome building across from where the CFA is now? Did they really replace that building with the Callaway building and a parking lot? Sad.
I think that was the county jail if I’m not mistaken. You can still see some of the wall/steps if you look closely enough on the corner.
Here’s another view of that building.
My previous post about that photo included a short history/description of the building you referenced…
“Progress Took Government Building – Standing on the corner of McDonough and Trinity Streets in downtown Decatur, the old DeKalb County government building was built during the county chairmanship of the late Scott Candler in the mid 1940s. Nearly 30 years later, it was demolished to make room for the construction of the county government’s Callaway Office Building. The old government building housed, during its lifetime, the departments of Plice, Fire, Sheriff and the DeKalb County Jail, Family and CHildrens Services and Planning, among others.”
Also we had a pretty interesting conversation about that general area in the comments section, if you’re curious.
Ha! Every parent’s worst nightmare…to have a prison on the same block as the high school and between the HS and the square. Though I guess the drug-dealing on the square now is worse than some prisoner cat-calling from a window! Thanks for the link to the other post…very interesting.
How bad in the drug dealing on the Square? When I ask my one freerange child about it, the reply is the standard “I dunno”. Whenever I see groups of sullen- or covert-looking teens or young adults on the Square, I try staring at them intently for evidence of drug dealing but then I get an incredibly cheery, friendly “Hi, Ms. At Home in Decatur” and I realize it’s kids whose noses I used to wipe in kindergarten and I feel like an idiot.
Aren’t most teens sullen and/or covert looking by design? They like to look as if they could be up to no good, even when they have no intention of doing anything except help with dinner, get their homework done, and look after their bratty little sisters and brothers. On the other hand, just because you knew them in kindergarten doesn’t mean they aren’t making (or contemplating) bad decisions now. Plus, most teens are crafty enough to know that greeting you by name might be enough to disarm your suspicions and throw you off the scent. Looking on as a non-parent (and recalling my own misspent youth), I think the one thing that hasn’t changed over time is the mind-boggling challenge of staying on top of what your adolescents are really up to (in their heads and on the Square), without jamming them under a microscope twice a day. Sheesh, good luck! 😉
The more I think about it, the more I think that one of those outdoor surveillance camcorders should film the Square 24/7 and be viewable on the City website, kind of like the beach cams on vacation websites. Only instead of viewing the weather and waves at a beach, parents could view what’s going on after school. The line between freerange and panic is thin indeed. I realize that there’s a conflict with the Bill of Rights but perhaps the latest hi-tech recorders have a way of screening out all those over 18 years of age?
What an unpleasant suggestion.
Which part is unpleasant?
– Violating privacy?
or
– Parents viewing what their children are doing on the Square?
or
– Screening out adults from the view?
or
– The fact that drug selling involving DHS and RMS students is happening on the Square
I agree that the all of these are unpleasant but my first choice–which is that there not be drug selling on the Square, one of the main thoroughfares for children walking home from DHS and RMS–does not seem to be an option. I’ve been hearing about drug selling on the Square for at least 2 years now. So I fantasize that I could observe the Square between 3:00 and 4:30 PM and reassure myself that it’s out of town children who are doing the drug selling and buying. Hasn’t anyone developed technology yet to implant a Skype micro-cam in your children’s forehead? You wouldn’t be able to see what they are doing but at least you could see where they were doing it and with whom!
Overbearing is the word that comes to mind.
Yup, because when your child is arrested for selling or buying drugs, or gets suspended at school, or skateboards across city property, or drives recklessly, or gets drunk at a party with no parents present, or whatever, you are criticized for not being involved enough, not paying enough attention, not knowing where your children are. You cannot win as a parent. My free range child just asked at dinner why I have to know where they are after school…duh, I’m your parent!
At Home, I am also against kids taking illegal drugs, but what makes you think that putting up surveillance cameras would stop that? If your kids are determined to buy illegal drugs, don’t you think they’ll figure out the cameras are there and move elsewhere? At some point in their lives, you’ve got to let your kids go.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t know where your kids are after school. I’m just saying that I don’t think cameras on the square will solve the problems.
I think selling drugs in the Decatur Square, which is just about the most public place in town, is stupid. OTOH, I also think that putting up cameras would not be a violation of anyone’s privacy rights. I don’t think one has any presumption of privacy in a public square.
Diane and Tom,
I hope that it was evident that my suggestions to have a beach cam on the Square or implant Skype chips in my children’s foreheads were facetious suggestions. Even I know neither are likely to happen. However, I am truly concerned that there’s been open talk of drug selling on the Square for at least 2 years because, if it really is happening consistently, I don’t see why it cannot be monitored and reduced. The upside of our Peyton Place smallness, nosiness, and sometimes overintensity is that we shouldn’t have that much trouble getting rid of problems like this, especially if it’s our own children involved. I know that getting rid of drug selling on the Square will just push that activity to more covert locations. But it sends a wrong message out to both drug sellers and our children if we allow it to happen openly. I’m not a big war-on-drugs type but I don’t like the route home from school for DHS and RMS students, some of whom are only 11 years old as they start 6th grade, to expose them to a lot of permissive drug use and selling, especially on the centerpiece of our City, the Square. For all I know, even some 4/5 students, who are 9 to 11 years old, may go through the Square walking and rolling their way home from FAVE.
Do you have anything other than hearsay evidence about drug dealing on the Square?
OK, so I don’t have kids and I pretty much assume no privacy protections anywhere in public anymore, thus I have little interest in this discussion beyond the one question that just screams at me: Where the He*! are all these drug deals on the Square you folks keep talking about?!?
Seriously, I can tell you exactly where to go to buy whatever illicit substances you desire. I can direct you to specific corners, houses and storefronts along Memorial, Hosea and Covington Highway. If you got some more dough (and I trusted you 😉 ) I could give you phone numbers of folks who would be happy to deliver some high quality weed, blow or pills (and don’t get the wrong idea, there’s no need to call DPD on J_T, I haven’t so much as smoked anything besides a nice Dominican in ten years; my knowledge is strictly professional and second-hand at this point). I also remember the Square of 15-20 years when it was not uncommon to see such things out in public, or right in front of the (usually) off-duty cops in the Grog Shop. But if I was a high school kid looking to score some schwag today, the Square would not be where I went. Heck, it’s probably easier to buy it IN school…
This is good news if true. But the issue of drug dealing on the Square keeps coming up here and elsewhere. Urban myth? That’s what I hope for. As I posted above, all the sullen, covert-looking clumps of teens I approach turn out to be friendly, unstoned-acting kids, who seem happy to see good old Son/Daughter of At Home in Decatur’s Mom. Freerange kid says “Huh?” and looks mildly interested in more info which makes me drop the topic quickly. I wouldn’t worry if if the topic didn’t keep coming up….
So now I’ll worry about what happens IN school….actually I won’t because I hear over and over again loud complaints that there’s no time between classes for even a bathroom break and that one must leave school immediately if without a pass or permission slip for a before or after school activity…which brings up other issues, for another thread. My children are too disorganized and uncoordinated to pull off 30 second drug deals.
Cool picture.
Most people blame MARTA for the destruction of the square, but based on this photo, I think most of the blame probably should be with the Dekalb County Courthouse. If not for the new courthouse, at least 3/4ths of the square would probably be intact.
But, hey, we got a huge parking garage that nobody seems to want to use!
That and the city proactively tearing down West Courthouse Square to try and get someone to put up a many storied indoor mall that was never built. To me it always sounded like something straight out of Martin Dressler.
I read that book. It is good on helping to understand that dreaming.
DeKalb County government definitely shares the responsibility, with MARTA, but so does our city government with their zeal for the misnamed “urban renewal” and the chase for federal funds.
My view is that by the time MARTA came around in the early ’70’s the Square had already ceased to function as a Square and life as it always had been had already changed.
The MARTA construction, yes, caused much disruption to the businesses who were still remaining by then, but ultimately, its presence in the Square (instead of continuing to run down the railroad like it does west of Decatur, as many supported back then) helped downtown Decatur reinvent itself as the place it is today.
A less “disruptive” MARTA following the rail road line would have also cut off all of the southside neighborhoods from the rest of Decatur even further and you probably would not have seen the renaissance there that we’ve seen the past 10-15 years. In essence, without MARTA running under the Square I believe Decatur would still be an eroding town.
Just read this yesterday; DM red meat if I ever saw it.
Back to Basics
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/back-to-basics.html
A deeper link. A great article.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2011/09/street-grids/124/
I’m realizing that I do not really understand the effect of MARTA on downtown, e.g.:
– Was it the station or the tracks that disrupted the Square?
– Could the station have built in such a way that the Square remained a Square that was accessible on all 4 sides? When I first arrived in Decatur and didn’t know my way around, the biggest barrier between the north and south side for me wasn’t the tracks but the Square. I’d go down Clairemont, get to the Square, have no idea of how to get around it or park, and then give up and go no further south. I think visitors to Decatur still do that.
– Was the Beacon Hill community destroyed by MARTA or further destroyed? Or was that already accomplished by the time MARTA arrived?
– Why would MARTA tracks running alongside CSX tracks be more disruptive rather just CSX tracks? I find it hard to believe that anything could be more dividing than the CSX tracks. I think that the northside vs southside racial and political divides would have ended much, much earlier if there had been a less rigid physical boundary between them. I lived in Decatur an embarrassingly long time as a single person before I even knew that Winnona Park and Oakhurst existed. I didn’t know that the College Heights and Fifth Avenue ares existed until I had children in CSD.
– What did the underground tracks and tunnel destroy? My naive thought is that something underground spares what is above it. But I think I’ve heard that the underground construction destroyed a lot.
The city’s urban renewal scheme, as DM has noted, and MARTA were both players in screwing up the square. MARTA was supposed to travel beneath Sycamore, which would have left the square intact, but there were unexpected geological conditions that made doing so cost prohibitive. So, instead, they half buried it, which is what destroyed the connectivity of our street network.
So, streets? Blame MARTA. Buildings? Urban renewal probably got ’em.
As for running along CSX instead of coming into the square, MARTA right of way tends to be fenced (as opposed to our CSX line, which is “permeable”). At the time of its construction, the black/white, north/south divide in Decatur was about as textbook as any southern town could be. With such a prevalent divide already existing in hearts and minds, the introduction of a physical barrier reinforcing the point would have put the final nail in southside’s coffin.
At least that’s the conventional wisdom, which I agree with.
Why would MARTA tracks running alongside CSX tracks be more disruptive rather just CSX tracks?
Just take a drive down Howard/Dekalb Avenue from McDonough St. in Decatur to Hill Street in Atlanta and you will see exactly what I’m talking about. In Decatur we just have a simple RR track at ground level.
Now, can you imagine that elevated MARTA rail track running right through and dividing our town instead of ending at East Lake? Just look at the destruction it took on the areas to our southwest. Before MARTA you used to be able to just cross the track from Howard Ave in Kirkwood to Candler Park/Lake Claire seemlessly. Now you have to go a mile (or more) in either direction just to cross the tracks.
As Steve said, it would have been a nail in the coffin for South Decatur. Despite the destruction in the ’70s, our city fathers did our generation a real service by sticking the underground rail out.
Scott, Steve … what’s the difference?
That’s what I was thinking.
Perhaps we should start commenting as a sort of Borg-like collective known only as “S.”
Ok, I get it now why above ground MARTA tracks would have been even more of a physical barrier. Even Renfroe kids late for school wouldn’t have been able to cross the tracks! And the concrete under the elevated tracks is ugly.
It was both the station and the tracks that disrupted the Square. None of the construction was tunneled under the streets or buildings on the east line. All of the underground construction from East Lake to Avondale was “cut and cover”. There was a huge hole that took off part of the West Court Square building and all of the buildings on the north side of Sycamore between Church and the Square. Not to mention 17 houses on Sycamore. Below, Scott is correct that it was all suppose to be below Sycamore but I have a different reason as to why it is not. In the original negotiations with MARTA, the Mayor of Decatur, Bill Breen had negotiated to have the station deeper under the Square so that much of what was displaced by construction could be put back with very little evidence of the station above ground. Sort of like a simple street subway entrance instead of the monument to transportation that we have. The buildings on Sycamore could probably have been rebuilt and we would not have that elevated plaza that severed the Square. Simultaneously, Avondale Estates was fighting locating a station in their city and eventually it was decided to put the Avondale Station in Decatur. It should have been named Sams Crossing Station. Meanwhile, Bill Breen left office and there was a new city administration and MARTA came back to the City and convinced the City to raise the level of the tracks in the Decatur Station. Their reason was they couldn’t technically achieve the grade change between Decatur and Avondale because the Avondale station was now so close to Decatur. I don’t buy the geotechnical reason. If there was one, that could have been solved. There hasn’t been a project that had more geotechnical investigation prior to construction than MARTA. They tunneled through solid granite 80 feet below Peachtree St. IMO, MARTA took advantage of the change in administration to do something different than promised because it was easier and less expensive. Part of the sales pitch to put the station on the Square in lieu of near the railroad was that it would be underground and would not change the character of the Square. That’s my long-winded recollection. Bill Breen could elaborate.
Wow, very interesting and helpful history. So there could have been a MARTA station over by the Freight Room? It would have spared the Square and made MARTA more accesssible to Winnona Park and MAK folks but might have divided Decatur more permanently like Candler Park and Edgewood or Inman Park and Reynoldstown.
Never thought about a Decatur MARTA station that was truly underground like most NYC stations as opposed to a monolith that erupts into the Square and totally disrupts everything–pedestrians, cars, businesses, history, symmetry. Any way to stuff it back down underground? Probably not–if there were, it would have happened during the recent plaza renovation. I do not share the sentiments of current MARTA blamers but I can see why the history with MARTA left many mistrustful and wary. I used to have elderly neighbors who still bemoaned the loss of convenient bus service to Downtown. Once they had to take the bus to the MARTA station and transfer, which often left them stranded coming home due to the infrequency of the buses, and being without a decent network of sidewalks for walking (at that time), they kind of holed up in their home and gave up on venturing out.
Thanks for the first person history, Udog! I’ll defer to your having lived through it, though I originally heard the geology vs. cost theory from long time locals as well.
Ultimately, though, whether it was bedrock or money or political expediency (or some combination thereof), the net result is that such justifications were prioritized above the value of place, and that’s a shame. The Courthouse was spared because it was grand and easy for the garden ladies to recognize and advocate for its value. Unfortunately, the comparable value of our accompanying everyday places (homes, shops and streets), I guess by virtue of their being “everyday,” proved easier to see in hindsight than at the time.
Having gone through that period of history, I think we’re less inclined now to embrace the gleaming promises of reinvention out right, especially when they’re wholly removed from the character of the places that define our lives.
Today’s incremental development of the city is a whole different animal than the scrape-and-replace dreams (nightmares?) of our recent past. Decatur’s done a lot in the past two or three decades to help put the city back together and for that I’m happy.
Remember that there was talk at some point of demolishing the old court house as part of a “grand plan”.
Exactly my point, Steve. The courthouse had the advantage of being grand so, when the garden ladies rose up to save it, it was a lot easier for them to rally support. Residents *got* the fact that it was something special. But it’s mostly been in hindsight that we’ve realized our not-so-grand, everyday places were pretty special too.
I’m glad this dominant “newer-is-better” mindset seems to be fading. As in love, sometimes you have to lose something to realize just how good it was.
“As in love, sometimes you have to lose something to realize just how good it was.”
Yeah, but then you find them on Facebook years later and realize “Then again, maybe not”.
That building was, indeed, the jail — but also housed some other stuff, including the county health dept. (where, about that time that picture was taken, I was probably getting a polio shot — ouch!)
But while there might be some reason to grieve for the loss of other old buildings, don’t shed tears for that one. It was, as i recall, a nasty, beat-up piece of junk. The Callaway Bldg is not great, either, but don’t worry that Decatur passed on a chance to have a great piece of architecture still in its midst.
“By all means, see Al Means”. The motto of the Al Means Ford dealership in the photo on the west side of the square.
You beat me to it!
If that photo is from 1961, I’m confident one of the buildings on the west side of the square is Al Means Ford (“on the Square in Decatur”). I saw the 1964 Mustang in the showroom of Al Means on the square. Within a few years, the dealership relocated to Scott Blvd, and a few years after that it became Friendly Ford (“Hey! We’re in Decatur!”) Most recently it was Lou Sobh Ford.
You can also see where the old Decatur Theater stood in what is now a parking lot nextto Eddie’s Attic.
Yep. I remember looking at the Mustang in the Al Means showroom. I think everyone that was a teenager then remembers looking at their first Mustang. Don’t think any car since then has captured the imagination of kids like that car did. I think we referred to it as “the 1964 1/2 Mustang”, because although it was a 1965, it came out in the early summer of 1964.
’64 1/2 it was! My mother had dropped me off early for my guitar lesson at DeKalb Music, and I walked into Al Means, guitar case in hand. The amazing thing was that they let an unescorted 13 year old kid sit in the driver’s seat and pretend he was diving without chasing me off! Different times!
My question concerns the square today. Why is the courthouse lit with those incredibly ugly blue lights. As someone in the film business I would fire my gaffer for something like that. Ick!
There’s fryers and broilers and Detroit barbeque ribs
But the treat of the treats is when they serve you all those fine
eight beats
You’ll want to spend the rest of your nights
Down at the house, The house of blue lights
Thank you for that! For all these years, I thought it was “serve up that fine eight-piece,” as in eight-piece orchestra. Eight beats, as in “beat me daddy eight to the bar” is even cooler!
Oh, thank you! I was starting to think I was living in a pop culture vacuum.
Why is it that when I put my cursor over the photo, it says “Decatur Ariel”. Is it supposed to say “Aerial” as in an aerial photo or “Arial” as in the font? Or perhaps this was taken by the one person in Decatur named Ariel in 1961?
Jonathan at Midtown Archive, who originally sent me the photo above, also points out that you get a good view of the mythical West Courthouse Square in this photo too.
I’ve seen this photo before, but never realized what a great view it gave of the long-gone block. Look at those arched windows in that building closest to the photographer! What I wouldn’t give…no, I told myself I wasn’t going to do that anymore.
And somebody please buy the old bank building (the building with hot dog/deli/wig shop/gift store) and take off that stucco front. As this picture shows … there’s brick under there!
What’s the large building back where McDonalds is today?
That was an apartment building. It was located across from McDonalds where the Bank of America branch is today. Commerce didn’t exist. There was another one similar to that one across from Noodle on Ponce.
Note that Salmonella has three, not two, ls. But if Salmonela is your real name, not a noun, never mind.
Salmonella
Have flagella.
But shigella
Don’t.
Hah! (Even if I had to look up flagella and shigella.)