A glimpse into the past of the Dirty Dirty.

March 5, 2015 1:24 PM

Photo sets of Atlanta neighborhoods from 1940s to the 1990s (Midtown, Cabbagetown, Ponce de Leon, Auburn Avenue).
posted by Kitteh (20 comments total)

Wow, I would not have recognized my own neighborhood (Midtown). Great stuff!
posted by pointystick at 1:42 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ponce, on the other hand, is instantly recognizable.
I still imagine the Ponce & Highland intersection like it is here; it's somehow easy to forget Urban Outfitters.
posted by pointystick at 1:45 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Awesome post! See also Atlanta Time Machine.
posted by spilon at 1:46 PM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ponce is eternal. Still miss living there, though EAV ain't bad.
posted by trox at 1:51 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I miss Atlanta terribly a lot of the time. In the Cabbagetown pics, I can see the shitty little shotgun house that I lived in for a year before it (and all my stuff) got destroyed by the 2008 tornado. And yeah, Ponce does not change!

I must have lived in at least five apartments during my decade there (Grant Park, Candler Park, Cabbagetown, Poncey-Highland).
posted by Kitteh at 1:58 PM on March 5, 2015

Plaza Drugs is an Urban Outfitters...Ponce changes
posted by thelonius at 2:02 PM on March 5, 2015

Actually, I remember better when Plaza Drugs was Harry's in a Hurry!
posted by Kitteh at 2:22 PM on March 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

Never closed
posted by thelonius at 2:33 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I love these photo sets. My grandparents lived in a tiny shotgun house off Moreland from the early 50s to the late 90s. (Everything's changed so much over there; my mom's high school is now loft apartments.) When my other grandpa came to visit from out of town, the Clermont Lounge was always on his "must" list.
posted by candyland at 3:29 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I went to Plaza Drugs one time to buy a can of Sterno, and I couldn't find it anywhere. When I asked for it, I learned that they had to keep it in a special, secure location behind the counter because the homeless people kept coming in and drinking it.

And that's how I learned that drinking Sterno was a thing.
posted by spilon at 3:40 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I can (almost) see my house from here!
posted by Panjandrum at 3:45 PM on March 5, 2015

My mom lived as a child in the apartments across Highland from the Plaza drugs. She and her dad would dress up and go get milk shakes. I believe it was the first "drive up and park" shopping mall in America. No cite, I just remember reading that somewhere so I could be wrong. It's still a bustling little area.....and she gets a kick that my family lives about 3 miles away. Ponce is definitely a place to visit in Atlanta. Great post!
posted by pearlybob at 4:14 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

In the late 90s I lived for a couple of years on Edgewood Ave, in a building that directly butted up against Dr. King's birth home. I worked at Coca-Cola at the time and walked to work, down Edgewood and under the Connector, across Five Points and out Marietta St. The photo set of Auburn Ave is especially evocative for me. Thanks for posting this.
posted by workerant at 7:30 PM on March 5, 2015

Yeah, in the photoset from Ponce, the thing that struck me most is how not different it looks. Swap out the makes of the cars and you're good to go.
posted by threeants at 7:45 PM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Threeants, I just rode up Ponce coming home from a rehearsal and I had that exact same thought. My blood ran cold seeing that you read my mind!!
posted by pearlybob at 8:02 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

My grandmother ran a boarding house on 8th Street in Midtown in the early 70's and while her establishment was quite respectable there was a boarding house known as the "zoo" next door full of hippies! She had quite the live and let live attitude. I spent every second I could at her house. It was wonderful and educational. Thanks for the flashback this morning! And Ponce will never die!
posted by oh posey at 4:25 AM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

memories of Ponce de Leon ballpark from (perhaps unreliable) narrator Col. Bruce Hampton, Retired.
posted by thelonius at 12:30 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Welcome to the neighborhood. These are great. I lived about 50 yards past Plaza Drugs on Highlands for a number of years (before the clothing store moved in); I went upscale and moved down the road into Decatur. My brother still has property down Highlands in VaHi and has an office in Old Fourth Ward.

ProTip: At the other end of the Plaza plaza is the incomparable Majestic Diner for all your 24 hour munchies and people watching needs. Just what you need after going to the Clermont Lounge.

P.S. - People keep telling me the "renovation" of Manuel's Tavern is a good thing, but I are dubious.
posted by kjs3 at 4:05 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Decatur really rolled up the sidewalks at the end of the business day when I was a kid, in the 70's. It's amazing how much it has changed; it was like a little small town downtown business district then, with some businesses, but no bar or cafes or even really restaurants that served dinner. Atlanta, on the other hand, seemed crazy fun and weird in the 70's - but I was just a little kid, so there has to be some correction there for how big it seemed. The tallest building was, I think, that Hyatt Regency with the little blue dome on top, or maybe the brutalist C&S bank cylinder. By the end of the decade there was the Peachtree Plaza etc though. Now the city has what, three skylines of big buildings?

Is anyone else getting error 403 on the Atlanta Time Machine link?
posted by thelonius at 5:55 PM on March 6, 2015

thelonious, I keep getting that error too.
posted by Kitteh at 3:45 AM on March 7, 2015