While a recent feature in the New York Times travel section went with the old, go-to “Mayberry Meets Berkeley” descriptor of Decatur, this recent blurb at the end of the New York Times’ “Atlanta For Kids” feature gets a bit more creative in describing our city.
Feel free to ignore or express your exasperation at the slightly exaggerated city population figure. 🙂
Where to Take a Field Trip
The City of Decatur, population 75,000, shares a boundary with the city. It’s essentially the Brooklyn of Atlanta, but with fewer hipsters and more strollers. The center of town is called “The Square.” It serves as a base camp for eating, play and shopping, which should include a visit to the Little Shop of Stories, a great bookstore that is a regular stop on the book tour circuit for some of the best children’s authors in the nation.
Families looking for a really local experience should head to the Decatur Toy Park at the corner of East Ponce de Leon Avenue and Nelson Ferry Road. It’s owned by a church and is the repository for seemingly every plastic wheeled vehicle and playhouse outgrown by the city’s toddlers.
East Atlanta is the Brooklyn of Atlanta. Decatur is Park Slope.
Park Slope is a Brooklyn Neighborhood.
Yep. I’m aware of that. Even so, it’s population is roughly three times that of Decatur. But it’s a somewhat more reasonable comparison than Brooklyn itself, which has about 2.6 million people.
If we’re diving down to Brooklyn neighborhoods, I’d peg East Atlanta more as Williamsburg. Park Slope does seem apt for Decatur.
I thought Decatur’s population was around 19,000.
Annexation. Happened without us even noticing.
Baby boom took us all by surprise. They are multiplying like rabbits.
That’s funny. I have been describing it that way for a few years now.
me too!
75,000?
That’s Postal Decatur.
And some really quality journalism in the accuracy department.
As a New York City native and former Brooklyn resident (I lived at a co-op with Jonathan Lethem ), I approve this comparison. We’re friendly, diverse (ish), we have great food, and everyone in the area wants to live here.
Now we need to step it up and get some decent bagels all up in here, and maybe another good pizza place. One is not enough to sustain the comparison, knowwhuddimsayn?
If we really want to live up to the comparison, we need a stinking, opaque canal with lots and lots of corpses in it.
Al, What is your good pizza place? Perhaps this is a good thread for DM … best pizza in Decatur?
For New York style pizza, Rosa’s, but that’s in downtown Atlanta.
Rosa’s pizza slices remind me a great deal of Fellini’s.
Huh? Not even close. Fellini’s is meh, with weird sauce. Rosa’s is the closest in the city to “real” New York style pizza.
no. 246 has good pizza.
We’ve got fewer hipsters and strollers than Brooklyn? Ay caramba. Brooklyn sounds like the worst.
I believe they said fewer hipsters, MORE strollers. So weighted toward the Mayberry side of the equasion.
Sounds about right. Both Brooklyn and Decatur were last affordable and hip about 10 years ago.
I think of Decatur as a smaller Portland. And, why I love Portland so much (except the weather).
That’s crap. Utter nonsense.
I say Brooklyn, et al. are the Decatur of NYC.
Damn pompous, egocentric yankees!
😉 that’s only a little joking….
What’s the Manhattan of Atlanta – Midtown?
In this article, a developer compares Midtown Atlanta (Peachtree near the park) to the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/real_talk/2015/02/developer-scott-leventhals-25-story-midtown-tower.html?page=all
These two stories seem relevant:
New York Times Begs Its Writers to Stop Comparing Everything to Brooklyn
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/nyt-to-writers-stop-comparing-stuff-to-brooklyn.html
All the Places The New York Times Has Compared to Brooklyn
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/all-the-places-the-new-york-times-has-compared-to-brooklyn/381315/
Ha! That’s pretty amusing.
“Correction: May 1, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the population of Decatur, Ga. It is about 20,000, not 75,000”
Go Team!
(Everyone knows that Decatur is the Harvard Square of Atlanta, sheesh.)
This is dating me but I remember Brooklyn when it wasn’t cool at all to be from there.
I remember the same thing about Decatur.