Briarcliff Plaza

Last updated
Plaza Theatre at Briarcliff Plaza Plaza Theatre Atlanta.JPG
Plaza Theatre at Briarcliff Plaza
Majestic Diner at Briarcliff Plaza Majestic Diner Atlanta.JPG
Majestic Diner at Briarcliff Plaza

Briarcliff Plaza, also known as Ponce de Leon Plaza, is a strip mall-type shopping center designed by architect George Harwell Bond and opened in 1939 at the southwest corner of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Highland Avenue in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta. Braircliff Plaza was developed by Relnac Inc., and was proposed to cost $300,000. Construction began after the last home on the block was purchased by Relnac Inc., the Dr. Robin Adair estate, and Briarcliff Plaza opened throughout 1939 with businesses such as Dupree Dry Cleaners, Blick’s Bowling Alley, Holcomb Flowers, the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Company and Nick Caruso’s Big Place which offered shoe repair, hat cleaning, pressing, repairing and hat cleaning. [1] It was Atlanta's first shopping center with off-street parking. It is anchored by the historic Plaza Theatre and Urban Outfitters. [2] A portion of the historic plaza area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. [3]

Contents

Druid Apartments

Druid Apartments (1917), which originally occupied the site 19170624 druid apartments.jpg
Druid Apartments (1917), which originally occupied the site
1917 advertisement promoting the Druid Apartments 19170624 druid apartments ad in atlanta constitution.jpg
1917 advertisement promoting the Druid Apartments

The Druid Apartments originally occupied the site. The $75,000 building was built in 1917 as a project of patent medicine magnate and real estate developer George Francis Willis. [4] In 1920, Forrest and George Adair brokered a deal whereby Willis sold the apartments for $125,000 to Alex F. Marcus and Charles F. Ursenbach [5] - both brothers-in-law of Leo Frank, [6] who had famously been lynched in 1915.

Related Research Articles

Druid Hills, Georgia CDP and neighborhood of Atlanta in DeKalb, Georgia, United States

Druid Hills is a community which includes both a census-designated place (CDP) in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States, as well as a neighborhood of the city of Atlanta. The CDP's population was 14,568 at the 2010 census. The CDP formerly contained the main campus of Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); they were annexed by Atlanta in 2018. The Atlanta-city section of Druid Hills is one of Atlanta's most affluent neighborhoods with a mean household income in excess of $238,500.

Poncey–Highland Neighborhoods of Atlanta in Fulton County, Georgia, United States

Poncey–Highland is an intown neighborhood on the east side of Atlanta, Georgia, located south of Virginia–Highland. It is so named because it is near the intersection of east/west Ponce de Leon Avenue and north/southwest North Highland Avenue. This Atlanta neighborhood was established between 1905 and 1930, and is bordered by Druid Hills and Candler Park across Moreland Avenue to the east, the Old Fourth Ward across the BeltLine Eastside Trail to the west, Inman Park across the eastern branch of Freedom Parkway to the south, and Virginia Highland to the north across Ponce de Leon Avenue. The Little Five Points area sits on the border of Poncey–Highland, Inman Park, and Candler Park.

Virginia–Highland Neighborhoods of Atlanta in Fulton County, Georgia, United States

Virginia–Highland is an affluent neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, founded in the early 20th century as a streetcar suburb. It is named after the intersection of Virginia Avenue and North Highland Avenue, the heart of its trendy retail district at the center of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is famous for its bungalows and other historic houses from the 1910s to the 1930s. It has become a destination for people across Atlanta with its eclectic mix of restaurants, bars, and shops as well as for the Summerfest festival, annual Tour of Homes and other events.

Briarcliff most commonly refers to:

Freedom Parkway

Freedom Park is one of the largest city parks in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The park forms a cross shape with the axes crossing at the Carter Center. The park stretches from west-east from Parkway Drive, just west of Boulevard, to the intersection with the north-south BeltLine Eastside Trail, to Candler Park, and north-south from Ponce de Leon Avenue to the Inman Park/Reynoldstown MARTA station. Freedom Parkway, a four-lane limited-access road, runs through the park west-to-east from the Downtown Connector to the Carter Center, where the main road turns north towards Ponce de Leon Avenue, with a branch continuing east towards Moreland Avenue.

Ponce de Leon Avenue road in Georgia, USA

Ponce de Leon Avenue, often simply called Ponce, provides a link between Atlanta, Decatur, Clarkston, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. It was named for Ponce de Leon Springs, in turn from explorer Juan Ponce de León, but is not pronounced as in Spanish. Several grand and historic buildings are located on the avenue.

George Francis Willis

George Francis Willis was an American millionaire who made his fortunes with patent medicines.

Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant (Atlanta) United States historic place

The Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant at 699 Ponce de Leon Avenue in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia was the headquarters of the Ford Motor Company's southeastern US operations from 1915 to 1942. As a result of good sales in Atlanta, and a desire to decentralize production, Ford established a combined assembly, sales, service and administration facility on Ponce de Leon Avenue, selling a peak of 22,000 vehicles per year. The assembly plant produced Model Ts, Model As and V-8s until 1942, when the plant was sold to the War Department and a new plant was opened in the Atlanta suburb of Hapeville.

Adair Park (Decatur) human settlement in Georgia, United States of America

Adair Park is a historic and contemporary community in the west section of the Atlanta, Georgia suburb of Decatur. It is one of Decatur’s most diverse communities in terms of building types, and includes several individual neighborhoods. Adair Park has single family residences, townhomes, cluster homes, institutional buildings and commercial buildings – built from the early 1900s to 2008. Its rough boundaries are: downtown Decatur to the east; Ponce de Leon Avenue to the north; Howard Avenue and the railroad tracks to the south; and the Parkwood neighborhood to the west. There is also an Adair Park in southwest Atlanta, but it is not part of the Decatur community.

Ponce City Market United States historic place

Ponce City Market is a mixed-use development located in a former Sears catalogue facility in Atlanta, with national and local retail anchors, restaurants, a food hall, boutiques and offices, and residential units. It is located adjacent to the intersection of the BeltLine with Ponce de Leon Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward near Virginia Highland, Poncey-Highland and Midtown neighborhoods. The 2.1-million-square-foot (200,000 m2) building, one of the largest by volume in the Southeast United States, was used by Sears, Roebuck and Co. from 1926–1987 and later by the City of Atlanta as "City Hall East". The building's lot covers 16 acres (65,000 m2). Ponce City Market officially opened on August 25, 2014. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Plaza Theatre (Atlanta) movie theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, USA

The Plaza Theatre is an Atlanta landmark and the city’s longest continuously operating movie theatre.

Copenhill

Copenhill, Copenhill Park, or Copen Hill was a neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia which was located largely where the Carter Center now sits, and which now forms part of the Poncey-Highland neighborhood.

Ponce de Leon Springs were natural springs located on the site of Ponce City Market in Atlanta, where Ponce de Leon Avenue crosses the BeltLine, and where the Old Fourth Ward, Virginia Highland, Midtown and Poncey-Highland neighborhoods of Atlanta meet.

Atkins Park United States historic place

Atkins Park is an intown neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, nestled against the southeast corner of the neighborhood of Virginia-Highland, west of Briarcliff Avenue and north of Ponce de Leon Avenue ("Ponce"). It consists of just three streets - St. Louis Place, St. Charles Place, and St. Augustine Place - as well as an internal sidewalk known as Malcolm's Way that bisects them from St. Charles to St. Louis. It was originally designed to give quicker access to the streetcar stop at Ponce.

Briarcliff Hotel United States historic place

The Briarcliff Hotel, now the Briarcliff Summit, is located at 1050 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE in the Virginia Highland neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia.

George Harwell Bond (1891–1952) was an architect active in Atlanta, Georgia and worked at the firm of G. Lloyd Preacher.

The History of Virginia–Highland, the Intown Atlanta neighborhood, dates back to 1812, when William Zachary bought and built a farm on 202.5 acres (0.819 km2) of land there. At some point between 1888 and 1890 the Nine-Mile Circle streetcar arrived,, making a loop of what are now Ponce de Leon Avenue, North Highland Avenue, Virginia Avenue, and Monroe Drive. Atlantans at first used the line to visit what was then countryside, including Ponce de Leon Springs, but the line also enabled later development in the area. Residential development began as early as 1893 on St. Charles and Greenwood Avenues, must most development took place from 1909 through 1926 — solidly upper-middle class neighborhoods, kept all-white by covenant.

The Atlanta neighborhood of Virginia–Highland is one of many intown Atlanta neighborhoods characterized by commercial space of two sorts:

The Colonnades

The Colonnades are condominium buildings at 734–746 North Highland Avenue in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. They are a contributing property to the Virginia-Highland Historic District, registered on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ponce de Leon Apartments

Ponce de Leon Apartments is a historic apartment building in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. A part of the Fox Theatre Historic District, the building is located at the intersection of Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue in midtown Atlanta. It was built by the George A. Fuller Company in 1913, with William Lee Stoddart as the building's architect. The building was designated a Landmark Building by the government of Atlanta in 1993.

References

  1. History Atlanta, "Plaza Theatre and Briarcliff Plaza"
  2. New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Shopping Center Architecture"
  3. "Weekly listing". National Park Service.
  4. Advertisement in Atlanta Constitution, June 24, 1917, p.14A
  5. "$296,000 in realty sales made Tuesday", Atlanta Constitution, March 24, 1920
  6. "And the Dead Shall Rise", Steve Oney

Coordinates: 33°46′24″N84°21′11″W / 33.7733°N 84.3530°W / 33.7733; -84.3530