Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Resource Study

COMMERCIAL CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT

The commercial strip along Edgewood Avenue typifies business districts, developed between 1890 and 1930, located along streetcar lines that emanated from American downtowns. Streetcars facilitated the expansion of metropolitan areas through increased residential and commercial growth. Neighborhood shopping districts developed to serve the new residential areas and replicated the land-use patterns established in downtown business districts. These outlying commercial areas also extended the central business district and represented the city's expanding commercial perimeter.

Edgewood Avenue developed initially as a residential area. In 1899, one- and two-story frame dwellings dominated the street from Piedmont to Randolph. Within the Site, most homes were modest L-plan cottages, shotguns, or duplexes. Vacant lots dotted Edgewood Avenue with denser residential development south and east towards the railroad corridor and west toward the central business district. Two large, two-story dwellings, typical of older residential development, occupied the northeast and northwest corners of Jackson and Edgewood. Several properties had stables and coal sheds behind the houses. Most houses were located close to the street with front or side porches. Lot size varied considerably with the larger lots often crowded with two or more dwellings.

Several corner stores, adjacent to dwellings, catered to the community along Edgewood at Howell, on Boulevard, and on Chamberlin (now Chamberlain) Street. A large church, the Fourth Presbyterian Church, served the community at Chamberlin and Jackson. Similar to Auburn Avenue, Edgewood was racially mixed between 1890 and 1905. West of Boulevard was predominantly black, and east of Boulevard was predominantly white. After 1905, commercial buildings began replacing residences along Edgewood Avenue extending from downtown to the east. Compared to Auburn, Edgewood Avenue developed earlier commercially, but never gained the popularity of "Sweet Auburn's" black commercial district. In addition, the commercial development along Edgewood catered to white business interests, although black workers likely were employed at some concerns.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Edgewood Avenue between Jackson and Daniel Street developed as a commercial and light industrial district, with one- and two-story commercial buildings ultimately replacing almost all residences. East of Daniel Street remained mostly residential until the late 1930s, although many homes on the north side of Edgewood were removed, and the lots left vacant. B. D. Watkins, a real estate developer associated with Asa Candler, president and majority owner of the Coca-Cola Company, built seven two-story brick buildings in 1908 and 1909. Another businessman, Marvin P. Roane, financed two buildings in 1906 and 1909. These two men contributed greatly to the commercial development of Edgewood Avenue.

In 1911, Edgewood Avenue hosted a variety of businesses including retail stores, a bottling company, coffee roasting, and electric motor manufacturing. By 1925, industrial concerns flourished, and a brush factory, peanut butter factory, another bottling company, auto storage, and a filling station lined Edgewood. Typically, the buildings' tenants were white and operated groceries, dry goods stores, liquor stores, cleaners, barber/beauty shops, pawn shops, upholstering, plumbing, shoemaking, cabinet making, auto repair, and auto parts supply shops and served a racially mixed working-class clientele. [115]

Between 1908 and 1927, the commercial development of Edgewood Avenue had reached its peak. The south side of Edgewood had two blocks of nearly continuous buildings between Fitzgerald and Daniel. These buildings, constructed by Watkins and others, were situated on short narrow lots with their front elevations abutting the sidewalk. Little vegetation obscured the buildings in the commercial area. Glassed storefronts commonly characterized the street level facades. As private automobiles increasingly dominated the streets, painted signs on the facades of buildings advertised the stores' goods and where customers could park.

Several automobile-related buildings, two service stations and a drive-in store, were constructed just before and after World War II. The 1946 Circle Drive-in Liquor store incorporated elements of Moderne architecture. This building has suffered neglect, for many years serving as a storage area for Danneman's grocery store to the east. It currently houses a cafe for the homeless. Three other post-war buildings replaced residential buildings formerly located between Daniel and Howell. Most of these buildings provided parking in front with the buildings set back from the sidewalk. The most notable, the McDonald Sheet Metal Company, influenced by the International style, is still occupied by an industrial concern.

As the residential areas in the Auburn Avenue vicinity declined, the businesses along Edgewood also suffered deterioration. Suburban growth, outlying shopping malls, and industrial parks further diminished the economic function of these commercial and industrial corridors. In addition, the construction of Interstates 75/85 bisected the continuous commercial corridor along Edgewood emanating from downtown, thus isolating the eastern commercial area. Many buildings continue to house business concerns, and some economic revitalization is occurring. However, vacant lots, both historic and due to loss of buildings, and deteriorating buildings still characterize these corridors.

COMMERCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES

The extant architectural resources of Edgewood Avenue are composed of one- and two-story commercial and light industrial buildings. Although much has been lost, surviving buildings represent two major periods of construction: 1905 to 1915 and 1939 to 1955. In total, there are twenty-nine buildings on Edgewood between Jackson and Howell streets, with sixteen constructed during this earlier period and six built during the latter period. The remaining thirteen were either constructed between these periods or followed the 1939-1955 period.

Commercial Buildings

The development of Edgewood Avenue as a commercial corridor at the beginning of this century is reflected in the late Victorian buildings which line the avenue. These were utilitarian buildings fashioned primarily in the Italianate style of architecture, similar to those constructed throughout the country at the turn of the century. Characteristics of this style include storefronts marked by broad expanses of glass and framed by columns or piers, round- and segmental-arched windows, horizontal stringcourses, flat rooflines, and projecting cornices. Exuberant ornamentation, such as an elaborately shaped pediment with finials, moldings and classical motifs, is commonly found on more prominent buildings or buildings located within the central business district.

Employing such decorative elements provided a means of distinguishing one's building from the surrounding urban fabric. The main facade, which is the point of contact between patron and product, was often used to create an image or advertisement that would lure customers to the merchandise within. Signs were utilized to great effect and included hanging and projecting signs, awning and rooftop signs and signs painted on glass windows, doors and transoms as well as walls. Danneman's Supermarket at 464-468 Edgewood Avenue and 467 Edgewood contain the Site's finest examples of painted wall signs. Danneman's, constructed as a market in 1909, has a multicolored sign on the two-story west facade which depicts a loaf of bread and reads "Reach for Southern Goodness." The two-story rectangular block at 467 Edgewood was constructed ca. 1910 and contains white painted wall signs on most street-facing expanses of brick. "BROWN HAYS" and "DEPARTMENT STORE" are painted on the north facade (photograph 18) with "BROWN HAYS COMPANY," "DEPARTMENT STORE," and "PARK YOUR CAR HERE/AND TAKE YOUR TIME" on the larger east elevation.

Photograph 18: 467 Edgewood Avenue, former Brown Hays store.

Signs such as these were common to the Edgewood Avenue commercial corridor, which during the early part of the twentieth century was largely composed of one- and two-story, rectangular brick buildings, considerably less exotic than their more high-style downtown counterparts. [116] Flat and shed roofs were concealed behind parapets with rear and side walls laid in common bond. These rear and side walls included irregularly placed sash windows and were left unadorned. Walls were built to the property line in order to maximize the interior square footage or selling space. This led to the construction of buildings directly adjacent to one another and, by 1911, a continuous row of storefronts existed on the south side of Edgewood, between Boulevard and Daniel Street. By 1928, this row of storefronts extended west to Fitzgerald Street. [117]

Storefronts of one-story buildings include large plate-glass display windows at ground level with a central, sometimes recessed, entrance composed of double wood-and-glass doors and a multiple-light transom. This arrangement is framed with plain brick piers and capped with a parapet that features a stamped metal cornice or decorative brickwork. 482 Edgewood, for example, is a one-story commercial building that was constructed in 1908 and used by a shoemaker, auto repair company, poultry company, and radio and television repair company. The main facade is essentially all glass and includes a central entrance flanked by four plate glass windows which are topped by a band of nine fixed lights. Decorative elements consist of a stamped metal cornice, a corbeled brick cornice, and a recessed brick panel that contains decorative brickwork. The double storefront at 443-445 Edgewood is another typical example (photograph 19).

Photograph 19: 443-445 Edgewood Avenue.

The primary facades of two-story commercial buildings are more complex as these buildings often serve more than one function (photograph 20). The larger facades of these buildings also offer greater surface area to develop a decorative scheme. The symmetrical plate-glass display windows and recessed entrances are similar to those of the one-story commercial buildings, though access to the second floor, which usually contained living quarters, is placed between the storefront and a side pier. The second floors are distinguished from the first floors with stamped metal cornices and feature double and triple windows set within segmental or flat brick arches. Decorative brickwork is found throughout the upper facade and cornice. There are seven extant commercial buildings on Edgewood Avenue, dating from 1905 to 1915, which were constructed as duplexes. One was designed to house three businesses.

Photograph 20: 439-441 Edgewood Avenue.

485 Edgewood Avenue, built by B. D. Watkins in 1908, is part of a row that spans four buildings from 483 to 493 Edgewood Avenue. This two-story, rectangular brick building exhibits many elements characteristic of early commercial architecture on Edgewood Avenue. The facade is essentially symmetrical with the recessed store entrance flanked by display windows, a second floor entrance placed to one side, and a prominent cornice capping the storefront. The second floor is punctuated with three double windows that are accented with rusticated stone sills and flat brick arches. The corbeled brick cornice is typical of the modest decorative schemes found on smaller buildings outside the city's central business district.

487-489 Edgewood, built by B. D. Watkins in 1909, is a duplex that exhibits an exterior organization similar to that of 485 Edgewood. The storefronts, in fact, are nearly identical, although the second level of each unit is composed of two triple windows and the brickwork on the upper facade and cornice is more elaborate. The Roane Building of 1906, at 537-541 Edgewood Avenue, is the Site's most richly decorated commercial building (photograph 21). The main facade of the second story is composed of two planes and is organized around a three-part, basket-arched window. Flanking sash windows are capped with flat brick arches and terra-cotta finials and egg-and-dart hoods. The uppermost part of the facade contains terra-cotta rondels in the upper corners that feature cornucopia and floral motifs, a corbeled upper facade, and the name and date of the building.

Photograph 21: 537 Edgewood Avenue.

476-480 Edgewood Avenue, built by W. H. Roane in 1909, is the only building in the Site designed to house three businesses (photograph 22). All three stores front Edgewood, with the most prized retail space occupying the corner, fronting both Edgewood and Boulevard. This entrance is angled into the corner, which provides optimum street exposure and shelter from the overhanging upper story. The storefronts of 478 and 480 are designed, like others in the area, with large display windows flanking entrances and a stamped metal cornice above. The second story contains two double windows with round heads. These are set within a larger brick arch which features corbeled brick details and an oversize keystone. The upper facade is marked by a horizontal brick panel, corbeled brick brackets, and a rusticated stone cornice that lines the parapet.

Photograph 22: 476-478 Edgewood Avenue.

The Edgewood Avenue commercial buildings constructed between 1939 and 1955 either lack the integrity to be considered eligible for listing or do not meet the fifty year eligibility requirement. Ivie's Garage, 438-442 Edgewood Avenue, constructed in 1939, is the only Edgewood Avenue property that meets both the integrity and age criteria. Two properties, at 458 and 510 Edgewood Avenue, although slightly less than fifty years old, are exceptional local examples of styles and are thus eligible.

Public and Ecclesiastical Buildings

The Site contains a limited number of public and ecclesiastical buildings that date to the period of significance. Several historic structures have recently become public buildings associated with the administration of the Site, such as the Visitor Center at 522 Auburn Avenue. Other buildings, such as the Baptist Memorial Institute School, a school for black children located on the south side of Auburn Avenue at the east end of the Birth-Home Block, have been razed. Those buildings that survive include Atlanta Fire Station Number Six, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Fire Station Number Six is a two-story Romanesque Revival style building erected in 1894 at 37-39 Boulevard. It is one in a series of neighborhood station houses constructed from approximately 1890 to 1920. These are two-story, rectangular brick buildings with a shed roof and decorative parapet. Similar to commercial buildings of this period, side and rear walls are generally left plain with most of the decorative elements found on the main facade. At the first floor level, these facades are marked by pedestrian entrances, windows, and one or two arched engine bays. Second-story sash windows are grouped together above the engine bays. The Romanesque Revival and Italianate styles of architecture are often combined through elaborate brickwork that includes pilasters, corbels, panels, and door and window surrounds.

The Romanesque Revival design of Station Number Six is suggested by the wide brick arches which frame the single engine bay and the band of five arched, second story windows above. This style is further characterized by the asymmetrically placed tower, which includes a date panel, and the machicolated cornice. The diaper-patterned frieze, found on both the Boulevard and Auburn Avenue elevations, is the most inventive example of the elaborate brickwork found throughout the building (photograph 23).

Photograph 23: Atlanta Fire Station Number Six, 37-39 Boulevard.

At 29 Boulevard, just south of the fire station, is a three-story building constructed in 1912 to house Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church and School. It was built under the leadership of Father Ignatius Lissner and was intended to serve the surrounding black community. The ground floor was designed as a church, the second floor housed the school, and the third floor contained the auditorium. Worship services are now conducted in a nonhistoric structure at 19 Boulevard. [118]

Our Lady of Lourdes is a plain, hip-roofed building faced with stone at the first floor level and displaying English bond brickwork on the floors above. The exterior ornamentation is largely associated with the brick lintels and corbeled surrounds of the windows. The two- and three-part jalousie windows are probably not original. The first-floor sash windows feature flat stone arches.

Ebenezer Baptist Church, located at 407-413 Auburn Avenue, is part of a tradition of church building that existed in the Sweet Auburn community in the first decades of the twentieth century. Big Bethel A.M.E. Church of 1904 and 1924, located at 220 Auburn Avenue, Wheat Street Baptist Church of 1920-1923, located at 365 Auburn Avenue, and Ebenezer of 1914-1922, are substantial buildings erected by a prosperous black community and built in the popular styles of their day. That these buildings soar above Auburn Avenue suggests both their spiritual importance and their place in the early twentieth century Sweet Auburn skyline.

Ebenezer was designed in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. Popular in the United States as a residential style from 1840-1880, Gothic Revival remained a common choice for ecclesiastical buildings well into the twentieth century. Although Gothic forms never completely disappeared in English church architecture, Gothic reemerged as a style of architecture during the middle of the eighteenth century with the work of William Kent and Horace Walpole. [119] Nearly a century later, it was promoted in the United States by Alexander Jackson Davis. Its popularity increased, however, through the work of Andrew Jackson Downing, whose pattern books, Cottage Residences, Rural Architecture and Landscape Gardening of 1842 and The Architecture of Country Houses of 1850, circulated widely. [120] Lyndhurst, the Tarrytown, New York residence designed by Davis in 1838 and 1865, and Richard Upjohn's Trinity Church in New York City of 1839-1846 are among the most influential buildings of the period and include such elements as pointed-arched window openings, wall buttresses, towers, castellated parapets, and steeply pitched roofs. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Upjohn's archeological approach to church design gave way to more eclectic church buildings. Later Gothic Revival churches include both traditional Gothic design elements, elements borrowed from other styles, and original motifs.

Ebenezer is a two-story, rectangular brick church with two large towers at each end of the Auburn Avenue facade (photograph 24). These towers flank a steeply pitched gable roof that contains two pairs of cross gables. The southernmost pair corresponds to a transept and contains a large, three-part Gothic window in each gable end. The brickwork at the lower level is covered with gray stucco and scored to resemble stone.

Photograph 24: Ebenezer Baptist Church, 407-413 Auburn Avenue.

The main facade is essentially divided into three bays. The towers, which comprise the two outer bays, are buttressed at the first and second levels and contain stained glass and louvered lancet windows. Merlons are located in the corners of the tower parapets. The center bay contains the main entrance at ground level, three narrow, stained-glass windows at the second level, and a three-part Gothic window in the gable end.

Two-story buttresses divide the side elevations into nine bays, with the tower comprising the northernmost bay and the chancel expressed in the southernmost bay. These bays are punctuated at the lower level by segmental-arched windows with the second-floor bays marked by tall, stained-glass windows. Brick panels mark the division between the first and second floors.

The rear elevation has been largely obscured by a one-story, hip-roofed addition built in 1971. An oculus, located high in the gable end, remains visible. The two-story Education Building, constructed in 1956 and rehabilitated in 1971, similarly obscures the east elevation. Brick beltcourses, panels, corbels, and window hoods ornament the front and side elevations of Ebenezer and to a lesser extent the Education Building. Brick ornamentation of this type is common in public and commercial buildings throughout the Sweet Auburn community from the early part of the twentieth century through the 1930s.

The church auditorium is located at the second level, above the below-grade meeting hall. It is an open, rectangular space, with the pulpit and choir elevated on a platform and a balcony across the rear of the sanctuary. The walls are white plaster, and the pitched ceiling is pressed metal, also painted white. The gently sloped floor is oak and contains a central and two narrower side ranks of pews. Transepts feature stained glass portraits of Rev. A. D. Williams and Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.