The Immaculate Conception Convent was located at 235 Washington Street. The Convent was part of the Catholic church and represented an area of religious work. Before the expressway was built, the building existed right underneath where the express lies today. An entire community existed underneath the expressway which included apartments, houses, and even a vocational school. The disappearance of this area was caused during the building of the expressway but there is evidence that suggests that an entire community existed before.

The area of Summerhill between Capitol Avenue and Woodward Avenue was mostly residential homes and apartments. However, one building that stands out is the Jewish Educational Alliance that was built in 1911. This building was meant to serve the community and a place where everyone could gather. Most of the residents in the area were Jewish, so they could go to services on Sunday and also bring their kids to kindergarten there as well. The facility also had a gymnasium (presumably for the daycare/kindergarten) and an on-site health facility that would also serve residents.

As has been alluded to in other posts, this area thrived as a predominately Jewish community throughout the early 1900s, with waves of immigration from Eastern European Jews. Several Jewish Synagogues and Congregations could be found in this area. Some of the most notable Jewish congregations in this area included the Beth Israel Synagogue and the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation. However, over time, this Jewish community largely began to dissipate and move to other parts of Atlanta. Many of the Congregations and Synagogues either moved or closed down, and were replaced largely by Christian churches.

If you were to leave the Georgia State Campus going south, you pass on by the Georgia State capital before going over a bridge across I-75 and I-85. What will greet you is a concrete wasteland, filled with rusted idols dedicated to the past glories of the Olympics. While you may be tempted to quickly rush your way on further south to the rapidly gentrifying Summerhill, you may want to walk through the empty parking lots and wonder what came before.

The parking lot south of the convention center did not used to be an empty concrete scar across the Earth. Rather, its history whispers of a bevy of different inhabitants that called this empty lot home. Today we will examine the development of a forgotten block of homes, that lay between Richardson Street, Fulton Street, and Crew Street.

The Sanborn map below contains a view of 4 blocks from the Atlanta, Georgia Sanborn Map of 1932 Volume 3.¹ Before the construction of the Downtown Connector, the Congregation Ahavath Achim once sat on the corner of Washington Street S.W. and Woodward Avenue.

Congregation Ahavath Achim first began in 1887 in a small house on Gilmer Street and Piedmont Avenue (where the Georgia State University Student Recreation Center is now!), very slowly expanded to accommodate members, and by 1899 had begun construction on a synagogue on the same lot.² By 1920, the congregation was servicing over 200 families, and their synagogue on Gilmer Street was not enough to accommodate all their members, so they expanded and began construction on another synagogue on the corner of Washington Street and Woodward Avenue, completed in 1921.³ There were about 800 families being serviced at the congregation by 1940.³ Ahavath Achim is Atlanta’s second oldest Jewish congregation.⁴

402 Pryor Street

The Warren Atlanta Boys Club Campus on Pryor street was initially the Jewish Progressive Club (Kentsmith, 20). This social and athletic facility was two stories tall and had a brick facade upon which a veranda spanned the western face. Amenities included a full sized gym, mess hall, auditorium, indoor pool, and numerous conference rooms (Kentsmith, 20). As the growing Atlanta Boys Club sought a bigger campus this property was sought out and Commodore Virgil. P Warren, president of the Warren Company, offered to purchase the property as a donation to the organization. The Jewish Progressive Club was also looking to relocate their headquarters, and sold the 402 Pryor Street property to Warren for $10,000. This generous deal was half of Warren’s initial $20,000 offer, and one-fifth of the properties $50,000 appraisal (Kentsmith, 21). The campus was named the Warren Memorial Boys Club in honor of Warren’s two sons that had died in infancy (Kentsmith, 21).

The aerial photographs below depict a block of land just Southeast of a highway interchange that forms the intersection of interstates 85 and 20. The image on the top was taken in 1949, two years after the interchange was planned for construction, and the image on the bottom depicts the landscape that remains following decades of expressway construction and redevelopment of surrounding land. While this area once belonged to a compact residential community with a thriving economy, significant changes in land use have reduced the area to being nearly undeveloped. Despite the area’s current state, the residential neighborhood that once existed in this block had undergone over half a century of rich and complex history, with both notable changes and consistencies throughout its lifetime.

The construction of the highway system erased neighborhoods from Atlanta’s history. Between Capitol Ave. (Now Hank Aaron Drive) to the west, Fraser St. to the east and Fair St. (Now Memorial Dr.) to the north, Rawson St. to the south, existed two blocks of neighborhoods. Primarily a residential area, these two blocks reflect the shift in the racial and business make-up of the entire city.

The Capitol Gateway is like the heart of Atlanta. It’s where you find a mix of old and new, with cool spots to hang out and lots of things to do. Terry Street SE is one of the main roads in this area, and it’s been around for a long time, seeing all kinds of changes in the city. From old buildings to new shops, it’s got a story to tell about how Atlanta has grown over the years. So, let’s take a closer look at Terry Street SE and see what makes it special!

In 2020 contractor Brassfield & Gorrie broke ground to build Georgia State University’s Convocation Center—a state-of-the-art facility used for athletics, graduation ceremonies, and many other events.¹ What ground did they break? Was the area always just another one of Atlanta’s many parking lots?

Originally established in 1866, 3 years after emancipation, the Allen Temple AME was located at the corner of Solomon and Fraser which is now still mostly residential. The other side of the street was turned into a parking lot, but this small block survived. This historic congregation serves as a lasting example to what the Summerhill neighborhood looked like before the construction of the highways. This congregation reflected and served the mostly black neighborhood that it was embedded in. The church expanded extensively while in the Summerhill neighborhood and bought property on Fraser Street.

When construction on Fulton County High School on Washington Street was finally completed after over a year, it was considered “one of the largest and most modern school structures in the entire southeast.” The school in 1925 was built with two stories and fireproof construction to deal with previous congestion in older buildings. The building would also have steel lockers for all its students, a vast cafeteria with 400 students, and an auditorium with 1,200 people. The cost of the building was half a million dollars compared to today’s money, which would cost between eight to nine million dollars. This building would serve all the kids in Fulton County, even those outside Atlanta’s city limits, like East Point and College Park. At the time, there were 740 students enrolled. ¹

One may look at the downtown connecter today and may think of it as nothing more than a large highway, however many don’t stop to think what used to be in these locations. After some digging around I’ve found that there is more to these areas than many realize.

The North-Central section of the Downtown Highway Interchange before the advent of the interstate system in the 1950s and 1960s was primarily residential with several noticeable community centers. This post will focus on the history of the Crew St. School from its beginnings and what eventually became of the space after the highways tore through the south side.

The South/West section of the Highway Interchange was mostly residential. The two non-residential lots were both Jewish synagogues, indicating that the residents were primarily Jewish. The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation and the Beth Israel Synagogue were the two Jewish synagogues found in the South/West section. Both of these lots were only a few blocks away from each other.

Built in 1869, Summerhill School was once the oldest operating school in Atlanta. Though the title would eventually be taken from Summerhill to be shared with three other White schools in 1872 when the Atlanta Public School System purchased the school (for whatever reason the three years it operated before its purchase no longer mattered). It served an almost entirely African-American community in the South Atlanta neighborhood of Summerhill. While parts of Summerhill would be mixed throughout history the school was entirely for the Black children in the communinty.¹ Though a segregated, all Black school, it would not be until after 1887 when Black educators and administrators would be able to work at the school and serve their community as well. This was attributed to the continued success of the Black university system the had developed in Atlanta after the Civil War by such people as W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington and their many contemporaries.²

The area that is now the “orange lot” directly North of Publix Summerhill has been a face of change throughout the city’s development. In 1898 and 1899 the surrounding streets were Capitol Ave. (S), Fulton St. (N), Frazer St. (W), and Richardson St. (E), and the area was primarily residential. The street names have largely remained the same with Frazer becoming Fraser by 1925 and Capitol Ave. being renamed Hank Aaron in the 1990’s. 1914 and 1898 directories indicate that the area was a mixed-race residential area with several names marked (c) indicative of the Jim Crow Era and had several vacancies.

Southeast the heart of Georgia, stands an abandoned building that was once a grand hotel, now iron fencing surrounds it indicating the restricted area. A ‘For Sale’ sign sits in front waiting for a buyer that may never come, evoking a sense of loss and history that led to its current state. Observations on the Google Maps Street View photos reveals the hotel at one point was a Holiday Inn, but now remains as an empty shell in the bustling cityscape of Atlanta. It also appears that hotel is not the only infrastructure on this lot, but attached to it is a storage facility or a covered parking lot of some sort.