What did Peachtree look like 50 years ago?

[Andrea]

Actually almost 60 years! Here's a detailed aerial view of the backbone of the city back in 1949. I labeled a few areas just for orientation. It's interesting to see how things have changed.

Aerial View of Peachtree 1949 You do have to scroll left and right a bit to follow Peachtree, as it's actually curvier than it seems. Things were still fairly residential almost all the way down to North Avenue.

[NCB]

Wow!

Its amazing how much Atlanta has changed over the years..

[ironchapman]

So much of that area were forested neighborhoods! WOW.

Awesome. Thanks forposting that, Andrea!

[teshadoh]

I love those aerials from GSU - I've georeferenced a few of them mainly in my neighborhood. It's interesting to see how much my neighborhood has lost from I-20, as well as downtown from all the freeways. Of course the most interesting aspect of these aerials is to show the dense urban neighborhoods to the east, south & west of downtown before urban renewal bulldozed them.

[ironchapman]

Does that library cover all of Georgia, or is it just Atlabta and Fulton County?

[teshadoh]

The site might be down now - but this should be the link:

http://www.library.gsu.edu/maps/aerialatlas1949/index.htm

THe coverage is only for the immediate developed area of Atlanta in 1949.

[Lady Celeste]

Now that is a lot of change.....thanks Andrea. I loved how it looked then and I love how it looks now.

[UrbanAtl]

Wow! Those are amazing to see.

Does anyone know what avenue was lost under the downtown connector in midtown? Between Midtown and GT there was another major avenue there. I tried to follow it downtown to figure it out but kept comming up empty.

[Andrea]

Wow! Those are amazing to see.

Does anyone know what avenue was lost under the downtown connector in midtown? Between Midtown and GT there was another major avenue there. I tried to follow it downtown to figure it out but kept comming up empty.

I *think* it was mainly Williams Street (and of course all the cross streets) that got paved over by the connector. Here's a link where I've attempted to show the 1949 Aerial with the freeway superimposed. It's not 100% accurate but I believe that's about right.

Of course the south end of the Connector also cut a wide swath through town, and didn't do any favors to areas like Sweet Auburn.