Atlanta's Own Greenwich Village

Sunday Times Observer May 27, 1962

By BOB WILLIMON

THEY used to call it "Tight Squeeze," and you could get killed there. Today they call if the 10th Street Business Section, and—taken together with 13th, 14th and 15th streets immediately to the north—it's as near as Atlanta comes to having its very own Greenwich Village, Soho, Chelsea, Left Bank, or whatever other big cities call the collective digs of their avant garde citizenry.

A stroll through the 10th Along Juniper, llth, 12th, Street area brings the sights, 13th and 14th streets, modern sounds and smells of exciting apartments blend with old living to all but a clod. From an old Victorian mansion comes the arpeggios of a piano student engrossed in Haydn, Liszt, Beethoven or Franck. High in a garret with plenty of north light, if one but climbed the stairs, can be found an artist, sometimes complete with beard, trying to express his feelings in a way he hopes will lead to fame and fortune.

Around the corner and up the street, one of the South's oldest art theaters offers high-grade films like "The Red Shoes," or a Guinness epic, and, just across Peachtree Street (or over on 15th Street), Atlanta's budding legitimate theater stars try their emoting talents before appreciative audiences. Dancing schools are thick in the area, and, especially in the spring, sidewalk florist shops remind one of Paris.

Margaret Mitchell Penned GWTW in the Neighborhood

Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone With The Wind," at least a major part of it, in an apartment just off nearby Piedmont Park. Exciting and exotic restaurants offer oriental and other gourmet foods, but you can also get a hamburger or a plate of country ham, grits and red-eye gravy.

The wail of the trombone, the happy twinkle of the banjo, and torrents of draft beer blend to make life happier or at least more tolerable to many who would escape the unrelenting pressures of everyday life.

The 10th Street area is all this and more. Fine old Atlanta families, whose sense of stability led them to refuse to join that swift northward expansion of Atlanta, still tend their flowers and water their well-manicured lawns in stately old mansions, others of which have long since become business establishments or boarding houses.

Along Juniper, llth, 12th, 13th and 14th streets, modern' apartments blend with old homes converted to the boarding houses which have served, and are serving, generations of Atlantans. If one were a sociologist, he likely would find that young high school and college "graduates coming to Atlanta to seek their fortunes gravitate naturally to the 10th Street section due to its artistic aura, its reasonable rents, convenience of transportation and shopping facilities. For those not yet ready or willing to accept a sentence to staid suburbia arid the eternal lawn-mowing chore, the 10th Street section is a welcome means of escape. Withall, the 10th Street section is a vital, throbbing, essential part of Atlanta—culturally and otherwise.

It was not always so. Back in 1867, the 10th Street area was known as "Tight Squeeze," because it "took a mighty tight squeeze to get through (it) with one's life," according to Franklin Garrett's wonderful three-volume history of Atlanta: Atlanta and Environs.

According to Garrett, what is now Peachtree Street prior to 1887 (when a 30-foot-deep ravine was filled in) jogged sharply westward at the present Peachtree Place and followed what is now Crescent Avenue for a piece, returning to its present course at or about llth Street. The road was narrow, crooked and bordered by heavy woods. There was a cluster of small houses at the. bend which is now 10th Street, together with a wagon yard, a black- smith's shop and several small wooden stores. ,

According to Garrett, it was apparently the practice of highwaymen to waylay persons returning from Atlanta (after selling goods) at Tight Squeeze. John Plaster, a Confederate veteran, was fatally knocked in the head there on Feb. 22, 1867, after selling a load of wood in Atlanta. His attackers were not apprehended. Another victim, Jerome Chesire, sustained life-long injury in a similar attack. The Fulton County Grand Jury, alarmed by the attacks, urged that a force of "Secret Detectives" be set up to patrol Tight- Squeeze and other approaches to Atlanta to protect travelers. The detectives; of course, were to be "sober, steady and energetic."

Used to be Called Blooming Hill

By 1872; the 10th Street area was no longer known as Tight Squeeze, but had become "Blooming Hill," the reason for such change being unclear to this researcher."

A man known only as Spiker, a citizen of Blooming Hill, wrote the local paper in 1872 that (Blooming Hill) is a "considerable little town.. . . with several fine dwellings, two grocery stores and another building.

"Rough Rice," continued Spiker, "having become disgusted with the newspaper business in the city, has opened a liquor establishment here and says whiskey sells better than literature. There is a Temperance Hall just fitted up here and a Lodge of Knights of Jericho organized. Jack Smith has a brickyard where he manufactured the best brick in the county. And ,last, but not least, the foundation has been laid for a church."

Booming Business Section One of City's Oldest

Spiker, obviously, was proud of his section. Today, if he could take a survey, he'd be even prouder. Some 110 retail outlets, - ranging from one-man operations to huge supermarkets, do a booming business in this area roughly bounded by Seventh and 12th streets and by W. Peach- tree on the west. Juniper on the east. Some 80 of the merchants are banded together as the 10th Street Business Association, and the area is one of the oldest shopping centers in Atlanta.