From the UGA archives comes this overview of the disparate housing conditions in Athens circa 1947. What’s interesting is the ghostly architectural elements our southern gothic town can’t scare off. Go to the main site to see the full amateur movie. My house was built about ten years before this film was shot and looks similar to the stick-framed African American homes in the film. According to a local historian, the shanty/outhouse neighborhoods seen in the full clip were located between Newton and Finley Streets, probably from Broad to Baxter. If that’s the case, you can see Tanyard Creek, an old flow of water that’s been filled over for sometime but still streams out of the ground in different spots. You can also see some of the deep ravines that haven’t been filled, one of which is filled with trash currently. An important note: these neighborhoods would now comprise the Athens Housing Authority apartments between Broad and Baxter. If you watch the entire clip, I believe you see some of the housing razed to build the first higher rise dormitories. Neat
February 6, 2010
Liberation Army story starts comment war
Features: Power to the Party People – Flagpole Magazine: Colorbearer of Athens, GA.
I haven’t had this much attention paid to one of my pieces since the Tofu Baby article last spring. The furor this time, never really about my work, started over the perennial anonymous commenter debate – it’s freeing vs. it’s weak. Unfortunately, it’s devolved into name calling. Rusk and Lewis, featured in the story, dove into the fray and are holding their own. I love it. Not that it means people are reading my work or anything, but attention is attention, right. The back and forth has reached 72 comments as of Saturday morning, and at this point it seems the name calling has stopped (it turns out many anonymous posters have issues with homosexuality) and the discussion has returned, for the moment, to debating online comments vs. signed letters.
What’s sad is the usual lack of discussion in City Pages, where another of my stories, a good bit newsier affair about zoning and Jittery Joe’s, has but one comment. Look for a one-graf follow up in the City Dope next week. Pete McCommons and I picked up on a few things the ABH didn’t. While the big paper might understand the futility of hope in the face of government bureaucracy, I like the underdog fight, even when I see both sides of the argument.
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Filed under Athens, Georgia, drinking, journalism, politics, writing
Tags: anonymous comments, Athens, flagpole, jittery joes, WSLA