Little Five Points

Colorfully sprawled around a five-way intersection where the neighborhoods of Inman Park and Candler Park meet, Little Five Points is, simply, the counter-culture center of the South.  With its edgy vintage clothing shops, punk bars, underground record stores, goth-y tattoo shops, New Age centers, feminist bookstore, and Manic Panic haired sparechangers, Little Five Points (or L5P), feels a lot like the early '90s in the East Village or Haight-Ashbury.  Interestingly, while the Haight and the Village have been all but consumed by affluence and gentrification, Little Five Points has somehow managed to keep its bohemian cool - despite the fact that the surrounding neighborhoods are now some of the wealthiest in the entire city. 

Little Five Points was originally developed in the early 1900s as a retail center for the surrounding neighborhoods, and was named after the center of Downtown Atlanta, which is known as Five Points.  Little Five Points was a bustling main street from the 1930s until the 1960s.  By the late '60s, like much of Atlanta, Little Five Points had deteriorated and the  neighborhood became known mostly for its vacant storefronts and crime.  


Then in the mid-70s, and throughout the 1980s, urban bohemians and artist types began to move in to take advantage of low rents.  In 1974, Charis Books opened as an alternative bookstore, and the following year Sevananda opened its doors as a community co-op grocery. 


Community investment and dedicated neighbors turned the area around, and now, Little Five Points is not only one of the most inspiring, vibrant and walkable neighborhoods in the city, but it stands as one of last thriving epicenters of cool in these all too homogeneous United States.