Clairemont Ave at Ponce circa 1956
Decatur Metro | December 16, 2011 | 11:19 am
Chris Billingsley sends in this great photo from DHS’ 1956 yearbook looking down Clairemont Ave near the intersection with Ponce de Leon. He notes…
Someone turned in a 1956 Decatur High yearbook recently. I really liked this view of Clairemont at Ponce. The Colonial Store is gone (I think it opened as a Pigley Wigley in the 1920s), replaced by an office building in the 1990s(?). Next to Colonial Store, separated by a small parking lot, is the Miss Georgia ice creme store. What a great place to spend a nickel on a delicious ice creme cone in the early 1960s. Both gone now but the Ga Power and Miller’s Bookstore buildings are still there. Nice awnings, don’t you think?
Thanks to Ms. Laura Nolan, DHS master librarian (and along with Ms. Susan Riley, mom to all DHS students) who scanned the photos.
You May Also Like:
-
December 23, 2014 AJC Attempts to Explain the “e” in Clairemont Avenue (9)
-
August 6, 2010 The Original Church Street Bridge (17)
-
November 21, 2011 Ponce de Leon Court Placed on National Register of Historic Places (3)
Latest from Decaturish
This is looking north(east) on Clairemont? So Georgia Power and Miller’s is the former music store and Decatur City Jewelers?
Sigh, a foodstore, bookstore, and shoe store in walking distance of most of us. And Oakhurst used to have a shoe store too. Did people wear more shoes back then or did they wear out faster? I guess the malls seduced away all the shoe stores. Now we have running or cycling shoes in town but not regular shoes. Even expensive McMahon’s moved to the Bicycle South strip mall. Sole didn’t last long.
Dear AHID – Just do it.
Actually, Suburban Plaza started the seduction.
didn’t Sole move over to the Edgewood shopping center?
Could be. Another defection from my walkable zone to a mall. Why aren’t shoe stores staying in or coming to Decatur? Forget Eat Mor Chikn. Buy Mor Shews!
Sole is in Edgewood and in November opened a second location in Atlantic Station.
Don’t forget, as you are doing your holiday shopping, that Oakhurst still has a shoe store – One Step at a Time http://www.1stepatatime.net/index.html . Run by Decatur treasure – Charles Cope.
Millers was a wonderful bookstore with office supplies and stationery. I believe it moved to North DeKalb before disappearing.
Thanks. Our neighbor, Ms. ___?___ Strong, whose husband was a dentist with an office further down on Clairemont was the manager of Millers. I recall there were several office supply stores on or near the square at one time.
Soon enough you’ll have a Wal Mart book-ending both sides of town so no more worries about being under retailed:)
They should have turned that Colonial Store into a Trader joe’s.
Touche’
Outstanding car porn
Where’s the porn? You can’t see under the hoods and I don’t see even a single exposed tail pipe…
Did electric street cars ever go down Clairemont here? Those 2 wires at the top of the picture look like the right spacing, but I can’t tell if they are over the street or not.
Nope.
For those of you interested in historic maps, like me, this is an interesting resource.:
http://nationalmap.gov/historical/index.html?utm_source=Georgia+Historic+Preservation+Division+e-newsletters&utm_campaign=de855fa999-Pres+Ga+Online+-+December+10-16%2C+2011&utm_medium=email
Greg, those wires appear to be those used for tired electric buses. I don’t remember a line on Clairemont, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. The only one I rode came out of Atlanta on Ponce, turned onto Sycamore Drive, stopped at Grove in Decatur Heights, then went up Poplar to Ponce.
Don’t think there was a RAIL streetcar on C’mont, but definitely a “trackless trolley” (basically an electric bus). I remember standing at the Ponce/Clairmont intersection as a kid and being frightened by the burst of sparks as it round the corner and the poles bounced on and off the lines.
Dave and Brent, I think you’re right. There was never a streetcar with tracks on Clairemont. There was the one that Dave remembers and the “South Decatur Line”, which came from downtown Atlanta, through Oakhurst and then through what is now the ASC campus.
Just to clarify what I meant Steve, I was referring to an electricity-powered bus with tires. The tracked trolleys were already gone when I was growing up, but some of the tracks were still in the streets. I used to have a map showing the two routes through Decatur, and I suspect some googling would turn up the image online, but I don’t have the time nor energy to do it right now.
Yes, Brent, the “poles” on top of the bus would sometimes jump off the lines, and the driver (using cussing under his breath) would have to get out and put them back in place.
My favorite memories as a kid was catching the bus up Ponce to the Ponce de Leon ballpark across from the Sears building to watch the Crackers play. I guess me and my buds were free-ranging kids, though that term had not been invented yet.
Ditto that. No. 2 Ponce.