Techwood Homes Historic District | |
Location | Atlanta, Georgia |
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Coordinates | 33°46′4″N84°23′30″W / 33.76778°N 84.39167°W |
Built | 1935 |
Architect | Burge & Stevens; J.A. Jones & Co. |
Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 76000632 |
Added to NRHP | June 29, 1976 [1] |
Techwood Homes was an early public housing project in the Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, opened just before the First Houses. The whites-only Techwood Homes replaced an integrated settlement of low-income people known as Tanyard Bottom or Tech Flats. It was completed on August 15, 1936, [2] but was dedicated on November 29 of the previous year by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The new whites-only apartments included bathtubs and electric ranges in each unit, 189 of which had garages. [3] Central laundry facilities, a kindergarten and a library were also provided. Techwood Homes was demolished in advance of the 1996 Summer Olympics and is now Centennial Place Apartments. [4]
The complex was designed by Georgia Tech alumnus and architect Flippen David Burge of Burge and Stevens (later Stevens & Wilkinson), [5] and organized by Charles Forrest Palmer, a real estate developer who had become an expert on public housing and would later head up both the newly created Atlanta Housing Authority and the Chamber of Commerce. [6] The landscaping was designed by Edith Henderson, who also designed the neighboring Clark Howell Homes with her partner Grace Campbell. [7] [8]
The name came from Techwood Drive, in turn named for nearby Georgia Tech. The project included a 300-student dormitory for Georgia Tech, McDaniel Dormitory, commonly referred to as Techwood Dorm. It was run by the Atlanta Housing Authority. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s the area was synonymous with urban blight in Atlanta.
Techwood Homes was built on land cleared by demolishing the Flats, a de facto integrated shantytown adjacent to downtown, home to 1,611 families, most poor, 28% African American. [9] The Public Works Administration replaced the shantytown with 604 units for white families only, with income qualifiers out of the range of many former inhabitants. [10]
The neighboring Clark Howell Homes was built in 1941 in a less institutional style. A. Ten Eyck Brown was the architect. Clark Howell was also reserved for whites until 1968, with an all-black counterpart at the University Homes project (built 1938) near Atlanta University Center. [11]
Except for a few historic buildings, Techwood Homes was demolished in 1996 before the 1996 Summer Olympics. It and neighboring Clark Howell Homes are now a mixed-use area called Centennial Place. [2] The first phase opened in 1996 just before the Centennial Olympics, hence the new name. Former residents were relocated to other areas, given Section 8 vouchers to assist with rent. Only 78 of the original residents were able to move back into Centennial Place, which had far fewer subsidized units than Techwood Homes. [12] [9]
The history of Atlanta dates back to 1836, when Georgia decided to build a railroad to the U.S. Midwest and a location was chosen to be the line's terminus. The stake marking the founding of "Terminus" was driven into the ground in 1837. In 1839, homes and a store were built there and the settlement grew. Between 1845 and 1854, rail lines arrived from four different directions, and the rapidly growing town quickly became the rail hub for the entire Southern United States. During the American Civil War, Atlanta, as a distribution hub, became the target of a major Union campaign, and in 1864, Union William Sherman's troops set on fire and destroyed the city's assets and buildings, save churches and hospitals. After the war, the population grew rapidly, as did manufacturing, while the city retained its role as a rail hub. Coca-Cola was launched here in 1886 and grew into an Atlanta-based world empire. Electric streetcars arrived in 1889, and the city added new "streetcar suburbs".
Home Park is a neighborhood of Atlanta in Georgia, US. It is bordered on the south by Georgia Tech, on the west by the railroad yards adjacent to Marietta Street and Brady Avenue, on the north by 16th Street at Atlantic Station, and on the east by Techwood Drive at I-75/85.
Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The largest of the city's three commercial districts, it is the location of many corporate and regional headquarters; city, county, state, and federal government facilities; Georgia State University; sporting venues; and most of Atlanta's tourist attractions. It measures approximately four square miles, and had 26,850 residents as of 2017. Similar to other central business districts in the United States, it has recently undergone a transformation that includes the construction of new condos and lofts, renovation of historic buildings, and arrival of new residents and businesses.
Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is a school district based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is run by the Atlanta Board of Education with Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson. The system has an active enrollment of 54,956 students, attending a total of 103 school sites: 50 elementary schools, 15 middle schools, 21 high schools, four single-gender academies and 13 charter schools. The school system also supports two alternative schools for middle and/or high school students, two community schools, and an adult learning center.
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The Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) is an agency that provides affordable housing for low-income families in Atlanta. Today, the AHA is the largest housing agency in Georgia and one of the largest in the United States, serving approximately 50,000 people.
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Fountain Hall, formerly Fairchild Hall and Stone Hall, is a historic academic building on the grounds of Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. Built in 1882, it is the oldest surviving building originally associated with Atlanta University—now Clark Atlanta University—which is the first of all historically black colleges and universities in the American South founded September 19, 1865. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974. It is now named after Bishop William A. Fountain.
The Edward C. Peters House, also known as Ivy Hall, is a Queen Anne style house in Atlanta, Georgia. It occupies a lot covering an entire city block on the southeast corner of Piedmont Avenue and Ponce de Leon Avenue in Midtown Atlanta, just north of the SoNo neighborhood. Its current owner is the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Streetcars originally operated in Atlanta downtown and into the surrounding areas from 1871 until the final line's closure in 1949.
Tanyard Bottom, also known as Tech Flats, was a shantytown just south of Georgia Tech along Techwood Drive. It was replaced in the 1930s with the Techwood Homes, America's first public housing project. It is currently the site of Centennial Place Apartments.
In 1996, The Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) created the financial and legal model for mixed-income communities or MICs, that is, communities with both owners and renters of differing income levels, that include public-assisted housing as a component. This model is used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOPE VI revitalization program. As of 2011, it has resulted in all housing projects having been demolished, with partial replacement by MICs.
In 1994 the Atlanta Housing Authority, encouraged by the federal HOPE VI program, embarked on a policy created for the purpose of comprehensive revitalization of severely distressed public housing developments. These distressed public housing properties were replaced by mixed-income communities.
Charles Forrest Palmer was an Atlanta real estate developer who became an expert on public housing and organized the building of Techwood Homes, the first public housing project in the United States. He would later head up both the newly created Atlanta Housing Authority and the Chamber of Commerce.
Marietta Street is a historic street in Downtown Atlanta. The street leads from Atlanta towards the town of Marietta, as its name indicates. It begins as one of the five streets intersecting at Five Points, leading northwest, forming the southern border of Downtown's Fairlie-Poplar district, continuing through Downtown's Luckie Marietta district, then entering West Midtown's Marietta Street Artery neighborhood, until terminating at its junction with West Marietta St., Brady Ave., and 8th St.
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The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
Edith Harrison Henderson (1911–2005) was an American landscape architect who practiced largely in the American South. She wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal Constitution and was the first woman to be elected an officer of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
The Olympic Legacy Program was an initiative taken in effort to revitalize many of Atlanta’s public housing projects in the early 1990s in preparation for hosting the 1996 Olympic Games. The initiative, guided by the principals of “new urbanism” was proposed as a way to transform thirteen former projects scattered throughout the city. The initiative began with Techwood Homes in downtown Atlanta, Clark Howell Homes, and continuing to several other projects in each zone. The program was led by former Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) CEO Renee Glover. While the project's ultimate effect was to reduce the concentration of poverty in the city, and improve neighborhoods, employment and education opportunities, finding housing for some of the poor shifted to suburban housing which lacked many of the social services of government housing.