Poncey Highland

As a transplant from Miami to Atlanta, it's been hard for me to publicly speak of one of the main avenues in the city - Ponce de Leon Avenue. In Miami, of course, Ponce de Leon  is pronounced with a strong Spanish rhythm, and I spent years perfecting it. But, here in Atlanta, it's most often said as Pawntz-da-LEE-on. At some point, in the not too distant past, it must've been Poncey-da-lee-on, hence the neighborhood situated around the intersection of Ponce de Leon and Highland Avenue - Poncey Highland. 

Poncey Highland was established as a "trolley suburb" around the turn of the last century, and most of the residences date to between 1905 and 1930.  In 1914, the Ford Motor Company built a manufacturing plant, which was later used by the Air Force for storage, and in the 1980s was renovated as loft residences.  In 1939, the art-deco Plaza Theater was built and, as a sign of the changing times, became Atlanta's first theater and shopping plaza with off-street parking.  

In the 1960s, the Georgia Department of Transportation began to acquire land to build a massive highway system and cloverleaf right through Poncey-Highland and the Copenhill neighborhood to the east.  Residents organized, protested, and litigated against the destruction of their neighborhood, for many years.  In the early 1970s, then-Governor Jimmy Carter, was able to stop the project and save most of Poncey Highland - but not before the entire neighborhood of Copenhill was demolished.  The whole area declined, and the land where Copenhill had been sat vacant for nearly twenty years, until the opening of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in 1986.  In 2000, Jimmy Carter was one of the ribbon-cutters for Freedom Park, which now meanders over the land that was once the Copenhill neighborhood.  In the 1990s, and 2000s, Poncey Highland rode the wave of in-town resurgence, and became one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods. 

Today, Poncey Highland is a perfect example of what makes Atlanta so cool.  It's an in-town neighborhood, with an laid-back urban village vibe, lots of beautiful big trees and green space, eclectic shops and hip hangouts, and mostly older residential architecture with lots of early 20th-century character.  In many ways, Poncey Highland is a transition neighborhood between slightly more affluent Virginia Highlands to the north and grittier Old Fourth Ward and Little Five Points to the south and east.  Poncey Highland residents tend to be well-educated, progressive, and fairly affluent, and there is a bit of a "grown-up hippie" thing going on.  It's not the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in the city, with European-Americans as nearly 80% of the residents, but like a lot of in-town neighborhoods, there is a strong Gay presence, and a definite Gay-friendliness. 

There is a hidden Poncey Highland that I was lucky enough to stumble in to while exploring for this project.  I hiked along the BeltLine (which is currently a series of abandoned rail lines that circle the core Atlanta neighborhoods and are slated to be transformed into a light-rail system with connecting parks and green spaces) and got an uncommon back-side view of the neighborhood. A lot of the shots I've chosen for this post are views from, literally, off the beaten path, but I think they still share a lot of Poncey Highland's essence. 

It's been nearly two years since I moved to Atlanta from Miami, and as I've tried to show here, I'm still fascinated by the prominence of texture and reflection of Atlanta, as compared to Miami's love of shape and color.