I arrived in Atlanta, Georgia for business. On the final day I wrapped-up and had a little time to visit a family member who lives in the city. That became a good excuse to head over to the Grant Park neighborhood on Atlanta’s eastside. We spent most of our late afternoon walking along the Atlanta BeltLine.
When completed, the BeltLine will create a 22 mile (35 km) circuit around the city’s downtown and midtown. Of that, I’ve now experienced about 1.7 miles of it along a portion called the Eastside Trail. Maybe this will become the first in a series of BeltLine articles over time. We’ll see. Hopefully I’ll be back in Atlanta before too long.
Mental Preparation
But first we needed to set the tone and get into the right frame of mind. So we stopped at Eventide Brewing in Grant Park for a small motivational taster flight of beers (map). It was one of those perfect early Spring days and of course we sat outdoors. Horses occupied a pasture across the street and offered something interesting to ponder. Is it odd to see horses within city limits in the 21st century? It seemed like it to me. However, the explanation came readily enough: the Mounted Patrol of the Atlanta police department keeps its headquarters there.
Krog Street Tunnel
Suitably relaxed, we headed towards an easy access point to the BeltLine. There are many places to do this and we selected the Krog Street Tunnel. This connects the Cabbagetown neighborhood to Inman Park and the Old Fourth Ward, by crossing beneath a railroad yard (map).
I’ll bet few dark, dank underpasses count as bonafide tourist attractions. Well, let’s call this one an exception. Graffiti and street art covered just about every imaginable surface as it apparently has for decades, a beloved and accepted neighborhood tradition. It changes all the time too. Come back later and see something completely new. I could sense the distinct smell of spray paint even as I walked through.
Soon we popped back into the daylight and onto the Eastside Trail. Here it followed a rails-to-trail model, formerly a railroad line and now a paved pedestrian walkway and bicycle path. Perhaps of interest only to geography nerds, the trail straddles the border between the Inman Park neighborhood (to the east) and the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood (to the west). So I could walk down the middle of the path and be in both at the same time if I wanted to do that. Which of course crossed my mind. But only once. No sense being obnoxious or showing too much geo-weirdness to family.
Then we took the path a bit farther and stopped at the Krog Street Market to stroll through the food hall.
Old Fourth Ward
Next we passed beneath the John Lewis Freedom Parkway, enjoyed more examples of street art, and arrived at the Historic Fourth Ward Skatepark. Supposedly it’s a pretty big deal and was the city’s first such facility. Tony Hawk even showed up for the grand opening in 2011 and his foundation contributed some of the funding. The photo above captures a corner of it within the grove of newly-budding trees in the distance (map).
Now look in the same general direction along the path and notice the people. The trail was crowded with walkers, runners and cyclists on this beautiful afternoon and remained similarly so into the evening. I’d been in downtown Atlanta all week and it felt practically deserted. That also seems true for business districts in many cities recently, when lots of people switching to hybrid jobs during the pandemic. Apparently, a lot of them were out here on the Eastside though, because the trail was buzzing with activity. Maybe hitting the trail after a work-from-home day?
Dinner Stop
Then we got hungry and it was time for our second brewery of the day; New Realm Brewing. The top level is an outdoor rooftop patio, which of course we visited immediately. It used to have a great view of the Atlanta skyline but then another building popped-up on the other side of the trail (map). Such is life along this rapidly developing section of the BeltLine. On one hand the BeltLine is functioning as designed; bringing new opportunities to traditionally under-served sections of the city. But its popularity also creates a level of gentrification and displacement in its wake, which somewhat defeats the purpose.
Ponce City Market
We walked as far as the Ponce City Market, formerly the southeastern headquarters of Sears, Roebuck and Co. up until the 1980’s (map). Here the company ran a retail store and a warehouse that served people who ordered from the famous Sears catalog within this corner of the nation. The City of Atlanta owned it after that and now it’s a mixed-use development preserving the original structure. There’s a lot of that happening along this segment of the Eastside Trail, where old factories and industrial buildings are now restaurants, offices, shops and condos. This one was particularly well done and I liked exploring through it.
End of the Day
But then the sun was setting and it was time to start walking back. I had an early morning flight to DC and I was pretty worn out from a long week. I enjoyed one last peek at the skyline and called it a day.
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