In Case the Falcons Tear Down Friendship Baptist

It's been in the news so I went see Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church. If the powers chose the "south" site for the new Falcons Station, Friendship is a goner. But maybe they'll chose the "north" site. I took pictures of the cornerstones, just in case.

 
It's beautiful. The institution itself has been REAL important for a long time though the buildings aren't particularly old.


The 2002 "Listed in National Register of Historic Places" plaque doesn't necessarily mean it's safe.


It's not in perfect condition, but it is in immaculate condition.

 
The gulch swallows it up. It's in such an open area, it doesn't have much visual impact until you get close.


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The church is picturesque but the setting isn't. Friendship is a buffer between the Georgia Dome, the railroad gulch, Castleberry Hill, and the Atlanta University Center.


Go see.


The 2002 bronze plaque plaque (2nd picture in this post) says 1866; this stone says 1862.

 
This is the 1968 cornerstone. This one says "1862" too.


The pastor's cornerstone says 1862.

This deserves more study but I was having a look around. Northside at Martin Luthor King is an "amen corner" with four churches.


Mount Vernon Baptist Church would be a goner if they pick the south site but they aren't talking with the press so we don't hear much about it.


Central United Methodist Chruch is on the west side of Northside Drive. I presume it's not at risk from the stadium.


The West Mitchell CME Church is also safe. Pardon me for taking a picture of the back side. You can't always tell with moderns.

Go see.

A Wake for the Last Church in Blandtown

But see, folks used to live in Blandtown and they built some pretty churches.

I'd like to pay my respects to the folks who met here, got married here, got christened and baptized here, who got eulogized here, who ate many fine covered-dish dinners here.


The Temple of God, 1353 Boyd Avenue as it stood on October 30, 2011.

Blandtown is now the West Midtown Design District. It's home to the Goat Farm Arts Center, Forsyth Fabrics, Lewis and Sharon Textiles, Myott Studio, and all those cool stores on Huff Road and Ellsworth Industrial. It's also home to a remarkable lake-on-a-hilltop, Reservoir Number 1 on Howell Mill.

But it's no longer home to any churches.


This was the last one. Picture courtesy of Myott Studio.


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When you see a lake on a hilltop, you know it ain't natural.


Blandtown is in blue on the NPU D Map. They don't even call it Blandtown anymore.

"Blandtown was named for Felix Bland. Born a slave, he was willed land by his former owner... It was one of the first black settlements around Atlanta after the Civil War. As a community it declined from the 1950s through 1990s" Wikipedia

Now Blandtown is a recovering warehouse light industrial re-purposed to design district. It's practical but nowhere pretty.


So on one of my take-the-long-way-home drives I turned down Boyd Avenue and found this immaculate little church. It could have been painted that very morning for all I could tell.


It classed up the whole street, the whole neighborhood.


I presume this was a walk-to church in its day, surrounded by homes. I'd bet nobody from that era lives in Blandtown today. There are a few new condos and apartments, not gentrification, not exactly.


They saved the cornerstones: Little Bethel, Greater Bethel, J. A. Hadley, Smooth Ashlar, Prince Hall, J.W. Dobbs.


I took pictures of the windows as best I could. North and south sides had matching symbols.


I wanted to see inside but there was no one to let me in.


When I came back on February 27, 2013, it was gone...buffed. I couldn't find a demolition permit. Georgia Power bought it from the Temple of God Inc.on 03-28-2012 for $315,000, about 1/5 acre.

Myott Studio is across the street so I knocked on the door to see if they knew anything. Myott was there, said they took some pictures and they'd send them to me. Here they are.


No fun looking at them. Picture courtesy of Myott Studio.


This is the only way I could see the inside. Picture courtesy of Myott Studio.


Probably a couple of days work. Picture courtesy of Myott Studio.


For the Atlanta insiders: I'm facing due east. The straight-line hill with the streetlights is the dam for Reservoir Number 1.

Morrow, Georgia's Classical Niches with Urns

The Morrow First United Methodist Church (1967) is the best building on this stretch of Jonesboro Road, a rather pleasant, practical, sparse, green, burger, nail-care, big box road along the tracks.


Its portico has two fine niches with urns. I'm at a loss about why these are so appealing to me but there you go.

Morrow has Spivey Hall and Clayton State University but you can't see them from the road and they aren't designed for show.

Morrow has two important if unexpected side by side moderns: The National Archives at Atlanta and The Georgia Archives.Both are warehouses fronted by impressive facades activated with modern facade pizazz. They catch my eye but don't make me care.


Wren-Gibbs style churches are everywhere. But there's SOMETHING about First Methodist. I couldn't figure it out when I was driving 45. So I stopped for a minute last Saturday.

William R. Tapp Jr. Architect Associates used some fine if modest detailing in 1967. Mr. Tapp, 1922-2011 was a Georgia Tech alum who designed a lot of buildings around here though this is my first encounter. His name is carved into a niche plaque.


The design "money" is in the portico...


...and in the niches. Isn't it amazing how the urn's shadows and reflections color and shade the niche.

Perhaps I'll do Morrow First Baptist another day. It's on Lake Harbin.


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Interesting and Miserable Drive: 11 Miles of Automobile Churches

There are so many great places and here I go complaining.

My errands took me OTP yesterday. OTP is Atlanta shorthand for "Outside the Perimeter" outside of I-285, Atlanta's perimeter highway.

It's was unfamiliar territory to me so I took the scenic way back. I focused on an 11.1 mile stretch, a state highway. It's now an inter-suburb 4-laner, a quick, safe road with synchronized signals.

Housing didn't collapse here. It's still on the make. Things are new. Some suburbs were ruined in the downturn but not this one.

I don't expect shopping centers, strip malls, tire dealers, restaurants, schools, recreation centers, office parks or even subdivisions to be noteworthy. They are efficient and efficiently built, whether in Georgia, Ohio or California, urban or suburban.

I pay them no attention whatsoever. I crave landmarks, something different.

"Most landmarks and focal points in cities - of which we need more, not fewer - come from the contrast of use radically different from its surroundings, and therefore inherently special-looking, happily located to make some drama and contrast of the inherent difference ... noble buildings ... set within the matrix of the city, instead being sorted out and withdrawn into 'courts of honor'"- Page 228, �The Death and Life of Great American Cities� - Jane Jacobs, Vintage Books Edition 1991

In this prosperous place the old farmhouses, barns, and quaint little churches are gone.

So the new churches are the only hope for landmarks. But they aren't so hot.

The landmark city churches are pre-WW1, pre-Depression, and post-WW2. You can't build them like that today except in centers of great wealth.

New churches are on a budget in the middle of parking lots. They are modern or pomo abstractions of classic churches. New city churches would look the same if they were actually building new city churches.

So these 11.1 miles are just a place to get through.