Athens, Georgia

[d.fell]

Last month I took a walk through downtown Athens and took a few pictures.

Athens is situated in Northeast Georgia and is home to the University of Georgia.

Athens has an MSA estimated at about 175,00 people and a city population of a little more than 100,000. The city and county (Clarke, the smallest in Georgia) consolidated in 1990.

In recent years the city has begun to improve the downtown core, though much remains to be done. The pull of sprawling suburbs, an overabundance of bars, high rents/low investment downtown, and fierce resistance from the local Chamber of Commerce have undermined the progress towards the kind of "Downtown Renaissance" other cities in the South are enjoying. It's reputation as a quirky little town may remain, but there is no longer much substance behind it.

The future of the city holds hope, though. A progressive mayor and city council appear ready to take on "the developers" (local boogeymen) and the weakening clout of the chamber could mean substantive changes may come sooner than many nay-sayers expected.

One can only hope.

Because of the volume of pictures I will be posting the different Areas in in new posts. Here is Area 1>> Oconee River/Lower East Broad

The numbers in the yellow circles and arrows in each section correspond to the pictures that follow.

Anyways- here goes:

No.1 Mill homes on Wilkerson Street.

No.2 Weaver D's; "Automatic for the People." Local rock band named their big selling album after this establishments guarantee.

No.3 Looking up East Broad.

No.4 The Oconee River. Athens has a network of trails and parks that follow this river for some distance.

No.5 First Street. East Athens.

No.6 Chicopee Mills. Once the Cook Brothers Armory which manufactured weapons for the Confederacy during the Civil War; afterwards a textile mill. Now used by UGA.

[d.fell]

Area 2 East Broad Street

No.1 Vignette of Lower East Broad Street..

No.2 Home of free local weekly "The Flagpole."

No.3 Looking up East Broad to five-point intersection and downtown.

No.4 Looking down East Broad towards the river.

No.5 Five-point intersection of East Broad, Oconee Street and Thomas Street.

No.6 Athens Banner Herald Building. Local Newspaper..

No.6a Welcome to the South. Home of grits, Bible-thumpin, gunracks in your stationwagon and people who do inexplicable things to their trucks.

No.7 Built in the 1840's

No.8 East Broad Street and the oldest part of downtown. Clump of trees to the left is the venerable Old North Campus of UGA.

No.9 Corner of Jackson Street and East Broad.

No.10 Looking up Jackson Street. UGA campus on the left.

No.11 Corner of Jackson and East Broad looking northeast.

No.12 I couldnt tell you what NICO is or why it is so important to these people.

No.13 Antebellum fence and tree, UGA North Campus.

No.14 UGA North Campus.

No.15 Looking East down East Broad Street at the old downtown.

No.16 Corner of College Avenue and East/West Broad Streets. Antebellum buildings on the corner (ca. 1850s?).

No.17 West down West Broad. Confederate and Naval Monuments located here.

I will be posting the next parts of the tour in the near future.

[Tennesseestorm]

Nice photos- thanks for posting! I see a larger building under construction there. Know what that is going to be?

Athens, GA - you are not to far from where my aunt and cousins live in Anderson, SC.... what- about an hour and a half away?

[dgreco]

nice pictures, thanks for posting.

[gs3]

Great photos! Athens is one of my favorite downtowns in the South.

[krazeeboi]

Cool shots. I've never seen any pictures of downtown Athens before; I might have to make that trek one day.

[Pillsbury]

Pretty shots. Too bad about that Starbucks in one of the pictures though. Many in the city tried like crazy to keep that thing out!!!

[tamias6]

I bet the same said people are putting that Starbucks to use now.

Anyway, great photos. I love all the old buildings.

Pretty shots. Too bad about that Starbucks in one of the pictures though. Many in the city tried like crazy to keep that thing out!!!

[byrde]

Good shots of Athens.

Here I have a few Pics to add. Hope you don't mind.

These Bulldogs seem to be all over the place.

[nick]

I live in Midtown Atlanta but live in Athens on the weekend (girlfriend goes to UGA) and I also went to UGA for a while and lived there for two years myself. Your tour is pretty good, and just to let you know Nico is a clothing store specializing in expensive as hell jeans. The shop is on the second floor of the building, and is accessible through an entrance on the side of the building facing Jackson St.

[suburban george3]

I think that building under construction is actually a condo/retail complex? I have customer in Athens and that's what I was told...

[Southron]

Great photos of Athens! Cool how REM's Automatic for the People album got its name, thanks for sharing that.