Inman Park Living
Growing up I lived in all the great beach towns around the US since my Dad was in the Navy. The moving around had its good points but when I was an adult I wanted to live in one place and let my children grow up with stability. I figured they could travel during the summers to see the world. It amazes me that I chose landlocked Atlanta as my home for the past 27 years.
Before moving here I had only been to Atlanta for conferences and stayed downtown. That is NOT Atlanta. I fell in love with the real Atlanta when I came here to interview for a job and stayed with a friend from grad school who lived in an Intown neighborhood. I loved the trees and the green and the weather and the shops and the parks and the people. I took the job and have been here ever since.
I live in Inman Park which was one of the first suburbs of Atlanta. The historic neighborhood is full of large Victorian homes and cozy bungalows and beautiful trees and parks. Jimmy Carter built his presidential library, The Carter Center here fifteen years ago. The department of transportation wanted to build a freeway through the neighborhood that would go to the Carter Center and then on through to the northeast parts of the city. At that time there was a big lawsuit which went on for years where neighbors banded together in this neighborhood to “Stop the Road”. Many homes were taken by eminent domain and razed to make way for the highway while the lawsuits were going on. Finally the neighborhood won its fight against the Freeway concept and an agreement was reached which modified the road plan where there would be an exit off the major Interstate I 75-85 to the Carter Center, and a road called Freedom Parkway. The extra land to and from the Carter Center around the road was turned into “Freedom Park”.
This fight against the road banded together neighbors who had been at that time a hodgepodge of artists, ex -hippies and urban pioneers. The process forged them into a true community and brought the neighborhood real treasure with the rolling parkland and the trails of Freedom Park running from Downtown to Candler Park and connecting to a bike trail going all the way to Stone Mountain.
Freedom Park Trail to Downtown Atlanta
At the east edge of Inman Park there is the Little Five Points shopping area, with the smell of incense, its tattoo parlors and vintage clothing stores it is Atlanta’s own Haight Ashbury. The western boundary of the Historic District is called the Railroad Corridor, and consists of a trendy warehouse area converted to lofts all along a now defunct railroad line. This area is now part of Atlanta’s Beltline project which is a set of railroad tracks going all around the city being developed with trails and light transportation which will tie all the Intown neighborhoods and parks together.
Eight years ago, I bought one of the run down warehouses on the Beltline tracks and developed it into seven lofts. I currently live and work in one of them and I am in the process of starting an Urban B&B. What was a rather bleak area of the neighborhood is now the tres chic place to live and work and is home to some of the best restaurants in the city. Keven Rathbun put Krog Street on the map with his nationally renowned restaurants: Rathbun’s, Rathbun Steaks and The Krog Bar. Usher has a wine Bar, The Grape, and Tyler Perry has a movie studio right down the street. The great thing is it is only 1 mile from downtown but it is an amazing urban oasis.
