old fourth

These boys dropped by to look for work and get their picture taken. I asked them about their shirts and they said a guy up the street was selling them. He apparently also had some bootleg Obama tees but I never saw them. The Old Fourth Ward is one of several neighborhoods that spill into Ponce. Midtown, Virginia-Highlands, Poncey-Highlands, and Old Fourth comprise the bulk of the street until it reaches the city limits heading east towards Decatur.

Back in the day, Ponce was racially divided north and south. I still haven't gotten a good interview chronicaling this, but many of the streets on the south side and The Old Fourth Ward are under different names than they are on the north side heading towards Piedmont Park. Monroe becomes Boulevard. Charles Allen becomes Parkway. One man told me it was so white folks didn't have to admit they lived on the same street as black folks.

The Old Fourth has been targeted for growth in the past few years with good reason. It's practically next door to Midtown, has decent skyline views, and has a nice collection of historic homes. The fringes near I85 are a bevy for so-called loft spaces and the dilapadated houses near Dekalb Ave have been renovated and go for anywhere between 250-500 hundred thousand.

Near Ponce the neighborhood is still primarily black and suffers from crime, especially along Boulevard. However, developers have already scooped up the land and are offering condos in the 300 thousand range. They don't seem to have many takers, seeing as how one property is still undeveloped and it sits next to one of Boulevard's best crack houses. However, with the shift from suburban to city life intensifying, I envision those properties going under contract within the next year as Fulton County growth begins to swell.

keep cool

Heading west towards Midtown, trying to keep the sweat off his neck.

moving day

I photographed a young couple moving into the Ponce neighborhood after a few months outside the perimeter. For the record, most people under 35 consider the perimeter as the circle between life and banality. In the past few years, all I've heard is reprehension of the suburbs and the constant damning of their worth.

I asked the woman moving in how many times she had moved and she told me three times in the last year. They was distain in her voice when she talked about living in Sandy Springs. She seemed relived to be back near the hub of the city. Of course, she was very cautious when asking about the security of the neighborhood. When I told her our cars had been broken into five times this year, she seemed carefree until realizing that I wasn't kidding.

The end of whiteflight means more and more people (family-types) are being driven to live downtown. They want luxury and allure without the dreck of urban poverty. It's as if the luster of city life never came with the idea that sixty years after professionals fled for the cheap comforts of the sprawl, they return to the ailing heart they abandoned so long ago expecting the problem to have fixed itself.

newsie

The heat was getting to me, so I tried to stay off the streets during midday. Coincidentally, the best times for good light are early/late in the day. I tried to avoid running errands and hitting the pavement between business hours. Of course, that limits your time for other things too.

I hadn't tried the community garden in months, so I made new attempts to try and find people tending to the soil. I ran into the caretaker last year and after a few emails, he didn't give me much help. There was no set schedule for any of the gardeners and they did not hold meetings or have group events. His advice to me was basically to stop by on the weekends and keep my fingers crossed that someone would show up.

The garden was empty and untouched since my last few visits. I tried to spot new growth or vegetation, but it didn't look like much had changed. Even on Boulevard, the appearance of a man with a camera was a sight and passersby gave me odd glances. At one of the housing projects, a woman opened her door and stared at me until I left.

Down the way, a man named Eugene was hawking Sunday AJCs for a dollar. I bought a paper and asked if I could take his picture while he worked. He obliged and I spent some time quietly observing him as traffic picked up. The cars and trucks, muffled earlier by Sunday Services, began to increase as the sun rose higher. I watched them roll by and take brief notice of Eugene before heading off under the burning heat.