Is pre-1996 really history? Of course it is!
For all you – or should I say “us” – post-Olympic transplants and not-borns, here’s what sat on the site of Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta before it was built.
Dang.
Photo courtesy of the Centennial Park Facebook Page
Mr. Boh
nelliebelle1197
FM Fats
Decatur Metro
Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre
chris
Chris Billingsley
anniefannie
AMB
LAM
Steve
Steve
Macarolina
J_T
Yep, just as unattractive as I remember.
Thelma’s Kitchen was in there somewhere. A great place, if you overlooked the occasional cockroach.
Thelma’s Kitchen is still around – relocated to Auburn Ave. right next to the interstate (hopefully the move was sans cockroaches). I hear Thelma has passed it along to the next generation, but she is still there most of the time.
Pretty knarly! Our office has the view from the opposite direction.
We watched as the tree that barely intrudes in the picture’s right side was excavated and moved by truck across the park. Seeing a fully grown oak slowly moving (or moving at all) was an exceptional experience. Unfortunately it did not survive.
Was it 1996 when Ted Turner colorized Downtown? He really is a visionary.
Lol!
The whole Omni complex was once out-of-town, and suffered as a result. Now it’s part of downtown, and there’s a whole new district north of the park (not shown) which did not exist. Add in the expansion of Georgia State and a new model for the whole Five Points area starts to take shape, one based on a creative class that (thanks to MARTA) can live in Decatur.
Decatur is growing largely because it’s in easy reach of three big centers of Creative Class employment — Emory, GaTech and GaState. It’s not about offices any more, it’s about campuses. Campuses that do cutting-edge research and can spin-out new kinds of companies.
What is the creative class, and why is it defined as a class?
I’m a creative, Toke. And I’m classy.
Seriously, I believed it’s a term used to identify workers who don’t produce goods; companies with big payrolls that put only limited demands on infrastructure.
“Decatur is growing largely because it’s in easy reach of three big centers of Creative Class employment — Emory, GaTech and GaState.”
Yep. The last one for me. Despite Decatur’s other charms, the major reason it works for me is the MARTA station and easy trip downtown. Alas, I find it much more difficult to get to Emory than to GSU.
Ditto. (Actually, I usually bike downtown, but it’s important to have MARTA available for times when the weather makes biking impractical, or when I just don’t feel like biking.)
Emory shuttle buses to/from Decatur MARTA station, so why difficult to reach Emory?
It’s not that difficult; I was exaggerating a bit. But it takes me less time to get to GSU than Emory.
Thanks for sharing DM. Speaking as a transplant it’s easy to schlag on downtown, point out it’s flaws and ask why isn’t it improving (or improving more quickly). This is a good reminder that things have actually gotten a lot better from the way they once were.
It looks a lot better (and cleaner) post-1996.
Since the Thrashers left, I may never see downtown ever again.
The 1996 Olympics was a huge turning point for Atlanta- we went from a just a simple, large southern town to a world class city. It did great things for the city from an infrastructure point of view.
But, the Olympics definitely didn’t cause the ‘de-ghetto-ification’ of the downtown area. Before and during the Olympics, there were serious concerns about people getting attacked in Centennial Olympic Park (it was still a very dangerous area, even though they put in the park). And, I remember a lot of discussions on how to keep riff raff out of the park after the Olympics were over.
The de-ghetto-ification didn’t happen until years later (very late 1990s, early 2000s) when gas prices went through the roof and traffic became completely unbareable. People started moving back into town to save money and time.
But, yes, the downtown/midtown area is so much better than it used to be. I specifically remember my mother demanding to go with me to the Georgia Tech library because she didn’t think that I should go there alone (I was a junior or senior in high school and Georgia Tech had the book that I needed for a school project) … But, she was right- Midtown was very, very dangerous at the time.
I also remember when Decatur was a ghetto, but that is another discussion thread…
Nice point about the Games, Native. It was a huge turning point for my relationship with Decatur, too. It was the first time we hung out on the square, and it was very cool. We had adult and kid guests at our house for the games, what to do for evenings with no tickets? Adults listened to the music on the bandstand and watched the events on the big screen against the SunTrust? building, kids went wild at the pin trading tent. We all visited the Olympic memorabilia exhibition.
We live on the west side of town and prior to that fortnight we were always focused to the west: VAHI, Midtown, etc.
I realize this wasn’t the point of your post, but your comment about the games and DM’s post made me a little nostalgic.
The only thing missing from the pretty post Olympics view is Turner Field– if only!
Speaking of the Olympics, I was at Decatur Beach Party the evening of the Centennial Park Bombing. The only thing that kept me from going downtown was my lack of correct change to ride MARTA. I am eternally grateful that I went home safely that night.
I’ll do you one better. I was standing just in front of the Swatch Pavillion (right near where the bomb went off) for most of that evening watching whatever musical acts were performing that night.
Right around midnight a band called Johnny & The Rockets came on and were pretty lame, so we left (it was also roughly my curfew as I was 18 and not yet off to college). I believe the bomb went off around 1:00 AM.
My mother, who knew of my general whereabouts for the evening but didn’t hear me come home, came flying into my room shortly after 6:00 AM after seeing news of the bombing, just to make sure I was home.
I was also at Centennial Park the night of the bombing, but left before.
Call me crazy, but might this have become a neat warehouse district like “West Midtown” had the buildings been remodeled/renovated instead?
Check out those gorgeous trees around the perimeter of the “after” photo. They have really grown in just 15 short years and provide some substantial shade. Nice news in 95* weather.