Has Woodruff Park always been "interesting?" (Atlanta, Marietta: home, landscaping)

[koko339]

I walk through Woodruff Park a few times during the day for school, and there's always something to see. Unless it's freezing cold and/or raining, it's constantly full of the down and out, at least the southern end. Has it been this way since it was built in the 70s? Or was there another part of downtown that attracted this crowd?

[TakeAhike]

During the 80's it was less 'interesting'.

I'm a bit hazy but it seems like during the late 60's the area around the Roxy and Rialto theaters was in decline. There were dime stores like Woolworths and McCrory's? somewhere around 5 Points/MARTA station and near the AJC that were sketchy. Maybe that is/was Marietta Street.

[DeaconJ]

I like Woodruff Park, and the less fortunate people hanging around don't seem like much of a bother to me...they pretty much have left me alone when I've walked around/through the park. I love the layout of WP, and especially love the water features. The Phoenix Rising statue on the south end of the park is one of my favorites in Atlanta. I love to see the many folks playing chess in the park on warm winter days and in the fall/spring. It's also cool how many office workers eat lunch out there on sunny days...and I've seen more and more residents walking their dogs in WP.


All sizes | DSCN0376 | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookguypdx/3728351240/sizes/m/in/photostream/ - broken link)


All sizes | Chess in Woodruff Park | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ermaloff/4637040134/sizes/m/in/photostream/ - broken link)


All sizes | Fountain in Woodruff Park | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/procrast8/207660482/sizes/m/in/photostream/ - broken link)

The vagrants make it look like a big city to me. Have you seen some of the downtown parks on the West Coast (Portland, L.A., San Francisco, Vancouver, etc.)? They make Atlanta's problem look small-time...not that your observations aren't realistic - they are - but there is a lot more going on in WP besides vagrancy, so I thought I would mention it.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by koko339

I walk through Woodruff Park a few times during the day for school, and there's always something to see. Unless it's freezing cold and/or raining, it's constantly full of the down and out, at least the southern end. Has it been this way since it was built in the 70s? Or was there another part of downtown that attracted this crowd?

Woodruff Park has had its share since the beginning. One afternoon about 1979 I was walking across the park and a guy stabbed me in the back with a pocket knife. It barely got through my clothes and broke the skin, but it hurt and it really made me angry to be attacked. Another time I was strolling back from lunch with an out of town customer and some crazy dude hawked up a big, dripping loogie and spit it right on my customer's leg and shoe. Pretty disgusting.

For many years there was a street preacher/one-man band who held forth at various locations around the park. His favored spot was right outside the Wormser Hats store. I must have bustled past him hundred of times before finally stopping to listen to what he had to say. I was expecting some old fashioned fire and brimstone but it turned out he was actually chanting a slightly mangled version of "Mary Had A Little Lamb."

[atlantagreg30127]

There were bums in that park/area even when I moved here in 1984, but Post-Olympics, things seemed to get much worse. I don't have an issue with bums who just lay in the grass minding their own business, but once they start aggressively panhandling and loiting on monuments, to me it becomes a big issue.

Not a big tourist brag when a city spends millions of dollars on a fountain for world games, only to have it used as a preaching outlet later for drug users....

[Iconographer]

Really, in the early 1980's the park seemed to be more utilized by the professionals in the neighboring office buildings than it is now, but even then it had its' share of the Great Unwashed. I always enjoyed the itinerant street preachers, though.
Funny anecdote: my cousin worked on the second floor of the Suntrust Building (then the Trust Company of Georgia) back in that era. She had a perfect view of Woodruff Park, and there was a pay phone about 150 feet away from her window. She and her co-workers loved to call the phone so that a passing vagrant might answer it. A couple of exchanges:
"Hello"
"Sir! Thank Heavens you answered! We're with the city sewer department, and we need your help. Our flashlight just died, and we can't see to find our way out. Do you see that manhole cover about 25 feet to your left?"
"Yes."
"Can you do this? Go over to that manhole cover, and stomp on it as hard as you can for about five minutes. That should give us enough time to find our way out."
Sure enough, the fellow went over and started stomping furiously on the cover, attracting the attention of amused passers-by.
Another:
"Hello"
"Hi, how are you?"
"Who is this?"
"President Reagan...I'm in Air Force One, flying about 30,000 feet directly above you. I saw you in the park, and just wanted to call down and send my best wishes to a fellow American."
Right on cue, the guy drops the phone and begins to stare at the sky.

[rackensack]

When I worked in the Hurt Building, in 1988-9, the park had a lot more mixed bag of people in it than it seems to now -- a lot of us white-collar office types would get food from nearby restaurants and eat in the park and read a book or whatever. The park was redesigned before the Olympics, with a lot of paved area dug up and replanted in grass and shrubs and other landscaping; trees were added and the trees that had been planted a couple of decades before got a lot bigger and matured, and the result was a much more closed-in feel. While there's no question grass is more pleasant than concrete, one result of having narrower concrete paths through the park with most of it given over to grass, instead of an open concrete plaza, is that people get forced into closer proximity to one another, and their routes through the park are more constrained -- making it a lot harder to keep a "safe" distance from the ranting street preachers, marginally lucid panhandlers, etc. I think that makes the whole experience feel less safe and pleasant for a lot of people.

[LAB6120]

Walk by on my way to/from work everyday, sometimes during lunch I sit at the table and chairs section, I have not had anyone bother me. I actually enjoy watching the chess games with the huge pieces. What I have seen of lately is more White homeless people hanging out in WP. Anyway, I am glad to be fortunate enough to have a home and not be on the streets-also (at least during the day) there are plenty of Police and Park officers around-I dont see an issue.

[AcidSnake]

It seems that from what I've been reading from the posts so far most people would point to Woodruff Park's downturn around the 80's. Hmm...it seems to be around the same time that certain forces had conspired to unravel the mental health system & other social services that our country had enjoyed for such a long time, post WW2.

I guess that there is a cost in everything, eh?

Originally Posted by koko339

I walk through Woodruff Park a few times during the day for school, and there's always something to see. Unless it's freezing cold and/or raining, it's constantly full of the down and out, at least the southern end. Has it been this way since it was built in the 70s? Or was there another part of downtown that attracted this crowd?

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

It seems that from what I've been reading from the posts so far most people would point to Woodruff Park's downturn around the 80's. Hmm...it seems to be around the same time that certain forces had conspired to unravel the mental health system & other social services that our country had enjoyed for such a long time, post WW2.

There's some truth in that, Snake. Not that mental healthcare was particularly great before the 80s, in that a lot of people were simply warehoused and many had been wrongly institutionalized in the first place.

But that was the era when funding was sharply reduced and thousands of patients were simply dumped out on the streets, without regard to their status, with no transitional assistance and no further support. We're still reeling from the effects of that.