The Beltline at Edgewood pt 2

Here are a few more photos taken from the Edgewood Avenue bridge over what will eventually become the BeltLine trail. These are facing north towards Irwin Avenue. The view facing south can be seen in this earlier post.

This section of the Norfolk Southern "Decatur Belt" had been abandoned only a few months before this first photo was taken in November 1995. Kudzu had just begun to creep over the rails. In the photo at right, taken February 2012, the rails have been pulled up, the homeless camp cleared out, and the trees have doubled (or quadrupled) in size.

This field was the site of several warehouses of the abandoned South East Atlantic Cotton Compress complex. The warehouses were destroyed in a spectacular fire on July 3, 1991, reportedly started by fireworks. I could see the fire from Doraville! The remaining buildings are now part of the Studioplex lofts and much of the site is now a parking lot. The building at far left is not part of the complex and is still abandoned. Top photo: November 1995. Bottom: February 2012.

Despite the dramatic changes all around it, this view is nearly unchanged in 17 years. Left: November 1995. Right: February 2012.

Here's a 1972 aerial view of the massive triangular warehouse complex that burned down in 1991. The Edgewood Avenue bridge is at the bottom of the photo.

In the 1892 Birdseye View of Atlanta, this was the site of a railroad maintenance facility including a roundhouse, turntable, coaling tower and associated buildings. Inman Park is at far right and a trolley line is shown on Edgewood (at bottom).

Google map of this spot:

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North Highland Avenue at the BeltLine

Another excursion into the gentrified Twilight Zone that is now Atlanta! Of the many places I have revisited in the last month, few have changed as radically as the stretch of North Highland Avenue between Inman Park and the Old Fourth Ward. What had been an industrial ghost town during the early 2000s has been transformed into a bustling mini-city seemingly overnight. Upon my return, I felt like Charlton Heston in Planet Of The Apes, but instead of being surrounded by talking apes on horseback I found myself surrounded by hordes of well dressed 30 year-olds and very expensive cars. The smell of coffee and creole food wafted from the direction of what had previously looked like a post-apocalyptic metal yard. Joggers in fluorescent neoprene suits jogged over the bridge that had served as shelter for a homeless encampment. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Here's a fantastic aerial photo from around 2001, "borrowed" from the website of Surber, Barber, Choate & Hertlein Architects, the firm that redeveloped much of this stretch of North Highland. The massive building at center was the Mead Paper manufacturing plant. To the right of that, across the street, was the General Pipe and Foundry complex that occupied the site for nearly a century.

Instant city: looking east towards Inman Park. The last time I drove through here, probably in 2001, this was an industrial wasteland of giant metal sheds, abandoned scrap yards and sprawling manufacturing plants. I now find myself in a strange new world. I wholeheartedly support the concepts of new urbanism but can't help feeling these buildings look like college dormitories.

This was the entrance to the abandoned Grinnell piping and design company, located at 200 N. Highland, as seen in November 1995. One thing I love about many old industrial and commercial buildings is the amount of detail and ornamentation that went into the design. The idea of spending extra time and money on such details simply because they are aesthetically pleasing seems almost unthinkable today.

Thankfully, the front facade was saved when the property was redeveloped as loft apartments and it looks completely surreal standing below sliding glass doors and balconies.

Here is the view looking north from the N. Highland bridge over the Norfolk Southern railroad, which was still in use when I took the first photo in November 1995. In the second photo, taken in February 2012, the old steel complex has been replaced by the cleverly named Steel Lofts. The construction of the BeltLine is well underway.

On the other side of the bridge, this is the view facing south towards the Old Fourth Ward water tower. The photo at left was taken November 26, 1995 and shows the Mead paper manufacturing plant. The photo at right was taken February 2, 2012.

Here's the same 1995 photo superimposed over a wider angle of the current view. I always love this effect of the past superimposed on the present.

Another shot from the same spot on the N. Highland Avenue bridge in 1995 facing south towards Cabbagetown and the Fulton Bag and Cotton mill.

Today the view is blocked by these apartments.

The stunning transformation of this area is possibly best summed up by comparing these two business descriptions from former and current occupants of the N. Highland steel site:

Then: GRINNELL Products delivers a complete suite of grooved piping solutions for a full range of mechanical, HVAC, commercial, mining, institutional, and industrial applications. Available products offer contractors, engineers, and distributors faster, more cost-effective tools for joining pipe over traditional welding methods.

Now: BROWBAR is the ultimate luxurious destination in Atlanta for brow grooming, full body waxing, organic facials, lashes, tinting & makeup & toxic free manicures by Zoya Nails! Whether it's creating the perfect brow shape for your face, removing all of your unwanted hair or rejuvenating your face, our professional aestheticians can help you achieve all of your goals.

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As always, thanks for joining me on these timed-warped "Sunday drives". Much more to come...

Before Historic Fourth Ward Park : Kelly's Seed & Feed Theatre

Top photo: January 1989 

Bottom photo: January 2012

In the 1980s I was intrigued by this forlorn industrial building with the Hee-Haw feed store paint job and psychedelic lettering. It seemed destined for demolition so I took this photo on a dreary January day in 1989. Amazingly, the building stood for almost another 20 years until it was demolished to make way for the new Historic Fourth Ward Park. The site of the park, adjacent to the old Southern Railway "Decatur Belt", had primarily served as an industrial area since the late 1800s. Most of the industries had moved out by the 1970s and a few of the properties were converted into restaurants, night clubs, and live theaters. This particular building was located on North Angier Ave. between Dallas and Morgan Streets just south of the Sears Building and Excelsior Mill / Masquerade. It was once a bottling plant for May's Beverages and in the late 1970's became the home of Kelly's Seed & Feed Theatre, which presented live stage shows. The theatre closed in the mid 1980s and, judging from the sign, subsequently saw use as a body shop. It was abandoned when I took the photo in 1989.

Here are a couple of photos of the Seed & Feed Theatre from the Georgia State University Library Digital Collections . The title of this first one reads "Steve Lindsley, Tom Cullen, and John Wittemore on the roof of Kelly's Seed & Feed Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia, 1979?"

The caption for this one is "Three Magi, from "The Play of Herod", Kelly's Seed & Feed Theatre, Atlanta, November 1983."

This is the view facing north on N. Angiers on beautiful autumn day in 1997. The May's Beverages sign was still clearly visible decades after the bottling plant closed. The same view in January 2012: the industrial area has been replaced by the Historic Fourth Ward Park. Ironically, when I returned on a strangely warm 70° January day, the place was more lifeless and deserted than ever.

I found this interesting history about May's Beverages over at Bottlebooks.com: May's Beverages-Atlanta May's Bottling Company, 544 North Angier Avenue N. E. Atlanta, was a division of American Associated Companies Incorporated. May's originally was a bottler of Mil-Kay, Bireley's & Topp Cola in Atlanta, and was in business from around 1932 to 1972. In 1962/3 decision was made to change name to May's Beverages-Atlanta, May's Bottling Company, at which time they switched to primary bottling of "May's chocolate flavored drink", the bottling division was discontinued in 1972. They had a United States Patent for the unique way of pasteurization they used in the bottling of their chocolate drink. 

Google Map of this spot:


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Peters Street Depot

One of the inspirations for driving around Atlanta and photographing 19th century industrial buildings was found at the Brookhaven library way back in 1987, a fantastic book with the unglamorous title "Atlanta Historic Resources Workbook". Published by the Atlanta Urban Design Commission in September 1981, the book painstakingly details the history and significance of hundreds of structures and historic districts around town, everything from the Fox Theatre and the Flatiron Building to houses and old bottling plants. I managed to find a well worn ex-library copy on Alibris a few years ago. It's a fascinating time capsule and profiles many historic structures that have since been demolished.

One of the more obscure entries in the book was this nondescript freight depot in the Castleberry Hill area.

The old depot is the white brick building on the left of this photo I took from a parking lot off of Spring Street on January 10, 1990. A fire destroyed the structure in 1992.

Something I never anticipated when to returning to sites I had photographed two decades earlier is the astonishing proliferation of chain link fences. There are now fences on bridges, fences underneath bridges, fences blocking access to bridges, fences around parking lots, fences around vacant lots, fences along the railroad, fences around buildings, fences across driveways, fences across roads. Fences, fences everywhere! One such fence kept me from recreating the same perspective of the above photo, but this is pretty close. January 5, 2012.

A much better view of the old depot can be found on this 1989 postcard of the former Atlanta & West Point engine 290. Locomotive #290 was built in 1926 for the Atlanta & West Point and operated with the New Georgia Railroad during the late 1980s and early '90s. It also appeared in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (...not to mention Decompositions) Anyway, #290 is now on display at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, GA.

Date of top photo: September 12, 1989

Bottom photo: January 5, 2012

An interesting comparison of bird's eye views from 1892, 1919, and 2010. What is striking about the first view is how self contained this area appeared to be in 1892. Before the advent of the automobile, houses, businesses, and industries were, by necessity, within walking distance of each other. The railroad depot was the focal point of the neighborhood. In the modern view, those relationships are completely lost.

Castleberry Hill 1989 / 2012

This is an old factory building in the Castleberry Hill area of Atlanta as seen from the Peters St. bridge. Top photo was taken in January 1989 and the bottom one was taken January 2012. This former factory was built in 1914 and has been converted to lofts. Not a whole lot has changed between these two shots other than the size of the trees. Off in the distance on the right side, the old Omni Coliseum has been replaced by Philips Arena.

January 5, 2012: The kids had returned to school from Christmas break, my wife was at work and the weather was beautiful. Alone again. Just like the old days. I looked out the window and, for the first time in over 16 years, decided it would be fun to grab my camera, drive downtown and just wander around like I used to do when I was 20. I grabbed a few old photos and set out to retrace the steps of that long haired kid in the 1966 MG.

So I ended up here in Castleberry Hill, an old industrial neighborhood that looks much like it did when I was a train obsessed kid in the 1970s. We used to drive through here on the way to the skating rink at the Omni every weekend or on the way to one of mom's marathon shopping trips to the downtown Rich's department store that once stood a few blocks away. For the most part, this area of Atlanta still looks pretty cool, with the slightly unsettling vibe of an industrial wasteland even though most of the old buildings are now lofts or galleries.

I took the top photo from the Peters St. bridge in January 1989. As I stood in the exact same spot 23 years later, my digital shutter clicks were accompanied by the sounds of a homeless guy playing flute on the opposite side of the bridge. Surreal.

The next photo shows a different view of the same scene taken in 1935 from the Southern Railway building (which is also still standing). This came from the Southern Railway Historical Association.




This 1961 aerial photo of downtown Atlanta is from the Atlanta History Center. These buildings can be seen at far left.