East Atlanta Village (EAV) -- An Urban Oasis of Culture and Community!
Those ubiquitous EAV stickers you see on cars all over town represent neighborhood pride unmatched by any neighborhood inside the Perimeter. East Atlanta is a diverse, friendly neighborhood with traditional neighborhood charm. Come see why the Washington Post calls us the best kept secret in Atlanta, the Creative Loafing calls us the the epitome of cool and a neighborhood's neighborhood, too., and the New York Times says our neighborhood is reaching the crest in what has been a steadily rising wave of cool.
We’re convenient: Our number of quality shops, services, and restaurants within walking distance can be rivaled in Atlanta only by the Midtown or the Virigina-Highland neighborhoods. Thanks to proximity and uncongested roads, getting downtown is a breeze. You can get to Braves, Falcons, Thrashers, and Hawks games often without hitting traffic!
We’re hip: Three music venues bringing great live bands to the Village almost every night of the week make East Atlanta a hotspot for nightlife. We’re also your spot for live DJs, pool and foosball, underground and foreign film – as well as a great place to pick up some great clothing, art, and accessories. They don’t call it “the Village” for nothing! When all that fun starts to make you hungry, enjoy a meal at one of our excellent restaurants: Thai, vegan, burritos, burgers, pizza, ice cream, continental, brunch, and much, much more.
We’re family-friendly: Our neighborhood is a great place to raise a family. Brownwood Park, with its playground, shady trees, and newly-renovated recreation center and computer lab, is located right in the middle of the neighborhood. The East Atlanta Branch Library is just a few blocks’ walk away. We’re also near Grant Park, Zoo Atlanta, the East Lake YMCA, and the Warren/Holyfield Boys and Girls Club. We’re also in the secondary attendance zone for the Neighborhood Charter School, a model of community/parental involvement and were recently included in the primary zone for the Atlanta Charter Middle School.
We’re active: Many weekends, you can see East Atlantans getting together to plant trees and flowers, clean up the neighborhood, raise money for public facilities, and just socialize. Our strong neighborhood association, EACA, works closely with the Atlanta City Council, Zone 6 of the Atlanta Police Department, the Atlanta Fire Department to make life in East Atlanta better and better every day.
We’re fun: For our annual neighborhood festival, the East Atlanta Strut, we close off the street for a parade, an artists’ market, children’s events, live bands, food, and fun. The Strut benefits local charities. More recently, we've added Notoberfest (the East Atlanta Beer Festival), the Brownwood Park Bike Rally benefiting the East Atlanta Kids Club, and the Battle of Atlanta Festival (most of the Battle of Atlanta occurred in the East Atlanta environs).
We’re a great value: One of Intown’s hottest real estate markets is still one of Atlanta’s best values. East Atlanta boasts an active market featuring homes of all kinds: stately Victorians, charming Craftsmans, adorable postwar homes, and lovely new construction.
Where is East Atlanta? We’re about a mile directly south of Little 5 Points on Moreland Avenue, or about 3 miles east of downtown on I-20. Visit us soon and you’ll see why East Atlanta has won so many Best of Atlanta awards from Creative Loafing magazine!
Pioneer Days In East Atlantaby Ann Taylor Boutwell
Three miles east of downtown is East Atlanta Village, an urban nook off I-20. The DeKalb New Era describe the neighborhood this way in 1897: “If you wish to live among the good people, drink good water, and have good health, and live a long time come to East Atlanta and buy yourself a home.”
The Battle of Atlanta fought here 141 years ago during the Civil War is a bit of history the community still celebrates with annual events. Telltale street names, a mounted cannon, and Georgia historical marker pay tribute to young, promising thirty-five year old Union General James Birdseye McPherson (1828-1864) in a small garden on the corner of Monument and McPherson avenues. Also in the vicinity on the north side of Glenwood Avenue, immediately northeast of I-20 alongside DeKalb Memorial Park at the intersection of Wilkinson Drive is a tribute to August-native Confederate Gen. William H.T. Walker (1816-1864).
On Thanksgiving Day 1889, John W. McWilliams & Son store on Flat Shoals and Glenwood avenues sold its first item, a pound of coffee. Two years later on April 13, 1891, the McWilliams’ store became East Atlanta’s first post office. Longtime resident Larry Felton Johnson, a software systems engineer at Georgia State University, spent his childhood days in the 1960s browsing around the business district on Flat Shoals Avenue. He said that McWilliams’ burial site is in the Sylvester Cemetery about a mile outside the village at the intersection of Clifton Road and Braeburn Circle on the eastern edge. “The old graveyard is named for Sylvester Terry, a teenager who died of an infection in the 1870s.” It originally belonged to the Terry family who owned the Terry Mill, a notable Battle of Atlanta site. Although 1830 is the first known burial date in Sylvester, Johnson said that the oldest readable markers are from 1856 and include names of East Atlanta’s founding families the Browns, McWilliams, Terries and Thurmans, as well as noted country musician “Fiddlin John Carson,” who died December 11, 1949.
By 1887 the Metropolitan Street Railway Company’s steam cars, known as “dummies,” pioneered by City Council member Aaron Haas, provided transportation to East Atlanta. When Joel Hurt’s Atlanta Consolidated took over defunct Metropolitan’s title in 1892 the upgraded streetcars became electric. Today residents and employees can hop on the #9 MARTA bus that takes them during rush hour from the Flatiron to Five Points in 15 minutes.
The community’s oldest surviving institution is Martha Brown United Methodist Church at 468 Moreland Avenue, built in 1915, on the corner of Metropolitan Avenue. Its roots go back to 1892 when East Atlanta was a little community of 250 people. Although the congregation has worshipped in three or four different locations during the past 113 years, they have always been in the community. In the 1950s and 1960s membership peaked at 2,234. Johnson said he belonged to the Boy Scout Troop headquartered at the church in the 1960s. Membership now fewer than 200 once again is reaching out and focusing on community needs by encouraging local groups to meet at the church like they use to do.
January 1, 1909 East Atlanta became part of the new Ninth Ward, which included Copenhill, part of Druid Hills, Edgewood, Reynoldstown and Brownwood. The annexation increased the city’s population by 8,000. Historian Franklin Miller Garrett said that many of the streets in the annexed area bore names of older Atlanta streets and Leggitts Avenue in East Atlanta became Flat Shoals Avenue. The first Ninth Ward council members were Aldine Chamber, lawyer and Eben A. Minor of Marbut & Minor grocers located at the crossroads of Flat Shoals and Glenwood avenues.
In 1911 the East Atlanta Banking Company offered the community an image of instant stability when it moved into its new red brick and stone building wedged in a pie-shaped lot on the southeast corner of Flat Shoals and Glenwood. The Atlanta Urban Design Commission in 1987 called the structure capped with a crenellated parapet “an architectural jewel of the main commercial intersection of East Atlanta.” It served as a magnet and attracted other entrepreneurs to the district. Seven years ago the village’s centerpiece building opened as the Flatiron Restaurant at 520 Flat Shoals.
“The flat iron building was not a bank when I was growing up,” said Shirley Waldrep Seay, it was Hodges Appliances.” Seay moved to East Atlanta in 1945 with her parents Ginny and M.H. Waldrep. The family opened a restaurant called Shirley’s on Flat Shoals. “I had my first credit at Mr. Hodges Appliances; he let me charge my first radio a small Crosley desk model. I paid $1.00 a week until I paid it off.” Seay said that Mr. Hodges was very good to most of the kids and helped get a street dance in one of the parking lots. She remembers lots of music and drawing for lots of prizes.
The two-story white Madison Theater with its four grinning gargoyles on Flat Shoals Avenue, currently empty, first appeared in the Atlanta City Directory in 1928. Plans to restore and reopen as an entertainment venue are part of future plans when investors, owner and city work out parking solutions. Seay had her first unchaperoned date at the Madison with a boy named Gene Seay who worked at the A & P. (today East Atlanta Art and Antique Bazaar at 470 Flat Shoals Avenue). She went to Roosevelt High and he went to Murphy High. They saw a musical, at a Sunday matinee. “Oh, he was a perfect gentleman and bought popcorn and cokes and tried to show me a good time—that was in 1951.” They married Valentine’s Day 1953. “Stayed together thirty years and our divorce was ironically final on Valentines Day. East Atlanta holds many memories for me as a town as well as a place to grow up,” said Seay.
J. C. Murphy High School on Clifton Road was one of the first four Atlanta high schools to desegregate on August 30, 1961. In 1988, after extensive renovations and several additions J.C. Murphy, East Atlanta, and Bass High School merged as Alonzo A. Crim Comprehensive High School.
The civil rights struggle and Interstate I-20 both affected East Atlanta in the 1960s. The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan lived nearby in an adjacent neighborhood and civil rights group targeted the area making it an example of racial integration of housing. Under the protection of the Fair Housing Act, middle class black families received assistance to purchase houses in the area. Some real estate agents, according to the history of the neighborhood on the East Atlanta Community Association’s website, seized the opportunity to fan the flames of fear and racial prejudice. At their urging, many white families fled the area selling their homes as a loss ( as low as $1,500 for a 3 bedroom). However many white families remained, determined to live in harmony with their new neighbors, hardworking black families achieving the dream of homeownership. By 1981 East Atlanta’s population was 60 percent black and 40 percent white/other racial mix. Unfortunately during the transition property values decreased and slumlords allowed residential and commercial area to deteriorate.
Even under these conditions the neighborhood remained stable, with many good people continuing to raise their families and go about their lives in admirable ways. There were also merchants both white and black who stuck with it, providing goods and services as well as employment of the residents of the neighborhood.
The East Atlanta Community Association established in 1981 continues to bolster a sense of community to improve the quality of life. Many improvements made in the last 20 years have come about through the persistence of the dedicated residents and businesses.
Copyright © Ann Taylor Boutwell, 2004
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