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Drive), white business owners once lived behind their stores, but in the 1940s, black owners started taking over these businesses. On Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Jr.
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In 1941, the Eagan Homes and Herndon Homes public housing projects opened and as a result, the black population in the area increased. The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 contributed to the already great need for housing for African Americans and by the 1920s-1940s, despite violence and bombings trying to prevent it, blacks started to move north across Simpson Road. Herndon, founder of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, built his home at 587 University Place, now listed on the National Register and open to visitors. The area south of Simpson Road - today's Vine City - was settled at the end of the 1800s by large land owners, and a predominantly African-American residential area was established, though there were also white subdivisions, schools, and churches. Overcrowding in the neighborhood's school is documented as a serious issue from at least 1910 through 1946 ( photo), notwithstanding multiple expansions of the facility. In 1910 the Western Heights school (later renamed Kingbery after a principal of the school, then renamed English Avenue Elementary School) was built at the northeast corner of English Ave. Today's English Avenue was known at different times as Bellwood and as Western Heights. Simpson Road was long a residential race barrier with whites to the north and blacks to the south. It was created as a white working-class neighborhood. English Jr., son of Atlanta mayor James W. What is now the English Avenue neighborhood was purchased in 1891 by James W. Construction is to start on the new Rodney Cook Sr. Ī section of the area, "The Bluff," is infamous throughout Metro Atlanta as a high crime area, but in late 2011, English Avenue and Vine City were the focus of multiple improvement plans, including a network of parks and trails, increased police presence, and "rebranding" for a more positive image. (Ashby) and the Washington Park neighborhood to the west. (formerly Hunter St.) and the Atlanta University Center to the south, and Joseph E. (Simpson) and the English Avenue neighborhood to the north, Northside Drive and downtown Atlanta to the east, Martin Luther King Jr. (formerly Ashby St.) and the Bankhead neighborhood to the west, and Joseph E. Įnglish Avenue is bounded by the railroad line and the Marietta Street Artery neighborhood to the northeast, Northside Drive, the North Avenue railyards and downtown Atlanta to the east, Joseph E. The two neighborhoods are frequently cited together in reference to shared problems and to shared redevelopment schemes and revitalization plans. Together the neighborhoods make up neighborhood planning unit L. Vine City sign with Georgia Dome in backgroundĮnglish Avenue and Vine City are two adjacent and closely linked neighborhoods of Atlanta, Georgia.