Virginia-Highland

Virginia Highland
—  Neighborhoods of Atlanta  —
Virginia Highland location relative to downtown Atlanta
Coordinates: 33°46′56.64″N 84°21′15.48″W
Country	United States
State	Georgia
County	Fulton County
City	City of Atlanta
Council District	6
NPU	F
Government
• City Council	Alex Wan
Population (2008)
• Total	5,565
ZIP Code	30306
Website	Virginia Highland Civic Association

Virginia Highland Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Location:	bounded roughly by Amsterdam Ave., Rosedale Rd., Ponce de Leon Avenue and the BeltLine, Atlanta, Georgia
Coordinates:	33°46′56.64″N 84°21′15.48″W
Area:	612 acres (248 ha)
Built:	1899-1955
Architect:	A. Ten Eyck Brown, G. Lloyd Preacher, Owens James Southwell, Leila Ross Wilburn
Architectural style:	Bungalow/Craftsman
Governing body:	Local
NRHP Reference#:	5000402
Added to NRHP:	May 10, 2005

Virginia-Highland is a neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, founded in the early 20th century as a streetcar suburb. It is named after the intersection of Virginia Avenue and North Highland Avenue, the heart of a busy commercial district at the center of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is famous for its bungalows and other historic houses from the 1910s-1930s. It has become a destination for people across Atlanta with its eclectic mix of restaurants, bars, and shops and for the Summerfest festival and other events.

In 2011 Virginia Highland was voted "Best Overall Neighborhood", by readers of Creative Loafing, and in June 2011, Atlanta Magazine designated Virginia Highland "favorite neighborhood overall".

History

Main article: History of Virginia-Highland

The first record of settlement of the area that is now Virginia-Highland was in 1812, when William Zachary bought and built a farm on 202.5 acres (0.819 km²) of land there. In 1822 he sold his farm to Richard Copeland Todd (1792–1850). Todd's brother-in-law Hardy Ivy settled in 1832 in what is now Downtown Atlanta and the road between their two farms came to be known as Todd Road (a portion of which still exists in Virginia Highland).

"Nine Mile Circle"

1902 map of Atlanta's streetcar network including Nine Mile Circle route

In the 1880s, Georgia Railroad executive Richard Peters and real estate developer George Washington Adair organized the Atlanta Street Railway Company. Their first project was the Nine Mile Trolley, which started serving the area sometime between 1888 and 1890 . At first, patrons used this streetcar line to visit "the countryside" outside the city, but the line also enabled later development in the area. Adair built his home at 964 Rupley Drive (still standing and divided into upscale apartments). The iconic curves in the street at the intersections of Virginia Ave. with N. Highland and Monroe are remnants of the trolley line which required gentle curves. The Trolley Square Apartments (now "Virginia Highlands [sic] Apartments") near Virginia and Monroe were built on the site of trolley maintenance facilities.

Residential development

Some of the original subdivisions

The first land to be subdivided in what is now Virginia Highland was Highland Park, between today's Greenwood and Blue Ridge Aves., Barnett St. and N. Highland Ave. However, the majority of the houses and streets in Virginia-Highland were constructed between 1909 and 1926.

Important subdivisions include:

• Highland View (1911) - Greenwood (north side), Drewry, and Highland View between N. Highland and Barnett; Adair (south side) between N. Highland and Todd Rd.
• Vineyard Park (1911) - built on the grounds of the Adair Mansion - Todd Road (east side), Adair Avenue (north side) and Rupley Drive
• North Boulevard Park (phase one from 1916, phase two from 1926), where Cooledge Avenue was named after E.J. Cooledge, vice-president of the North Boulevard Park Corp., and Orme Circle (And later the eponymous park) were names for A.J. Orme, its secretary-treasurer.
• Virginia Hills (from 1921)
• Virginia Highlands (from 1922) (with an "s" – note that this was before "Virginia Highland" came to refer to the entire neighborhood).

• 

  1893 ad for Highland Park

• 

  1911 ad for Highland View

• 

  1916 ad for North Boulevard Park

• 

  1922 ad for Virginia Highlands

• 

  1922 ad for Virginia Hills

In 1916 the Arc Light Controversy raged between neighbors on Adair Ave. and N. Highland Ave.

Commercial development

Some businesses opened around the intersection of Virginia and N. Highland starting in 1908, with many more opening starting in 1925. At the same time development started in the Atkins Park commercial district around St. Charles. Ave. and N. Highland, including in the present-day Atkins Park Restaurant (1922) which reportedly got what is now Atlanta's oldest liquor license when it became a bar and restaurant in 1927. Between 1928 and 1930, the Howard Dry Cleaning Company and the Phelps Millard Grocery opened, anchoring the Amsterdam and N. Highland business district.

The Samuel N. Inman School, named after the nineteenth-century cotton merchant, was built in 1923. In 1924, fire station 19 was built on N. Highland at Los Angeles Ave.

Streetcar service to Virginia-Highland ended around 1947, along with all of the other trolley lines into and out of central Atlanta.

Decline

Virginia-Highland, like most intown Atlanta neighborhoods, suffered decline starting in the 1960s as residents moved to the suburbs. Less-affluent residents moved in, some single-family houses were turned into apartments, and crime increased. Some businesses closed and were replaced by lower-rent tenants such as pawn shops. Others, such as Moe’s and Joe’s (which opened in 1947) and Atkins Park Restaurant, stayed open. Many buildings deteriorated.

Threat and defeat of I-485

Main article: Freeway revolt in Atlanta

What could have been the death knell for the neighborhood sounded in the mid-1960s, when the Georgia Department of Transportation proposed building Interstate 485 to connect what is now Freedom Parkway through the neighborhood and to what is now Georgia 400 at Interstate 85. It would have included an interchange at Virginia Avenue where John Howell Memorial Park is today. Despite the I-485 proposal moving forward, a few middle-class families began moving back into the neighborhood, renovating homes.

In Fall 1971, Joseph (Joe) Drolet and others founded the Virginia-Highland Civic Association (VHCA), whose mission was to defeat I-485. They along with residents of Stone Mountain, Inman Park, and Morningside finally defeated I-485, and became a political force to be reckoned with. The current Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) system is an outgrowth of these events. In 2009, the original north/south freeway (connecting 675 to 400) was again put on GDOT's to-do list, but this time running in a tunnel underneath the neighborhoods, with buildings to vent exhaust fumes and smog above ground.

Between 1972 and 1975, property values increased from 20 to 50 percent. Home ownership levels rose 20 percent. A tour of thirteen renovated homes started in 1972. The Georgia Department of Transportation began selling properties it had acquired for I-485, virtually all of them for infill housing. The 3 acres (12,000 m²) of land on Virginia Avenue where 11 houses had been taken and demolished to make way for a Virginia Avenue exit, however, was finally opened in 1988 as John Howell Memorial Park, in memory of Virginia-Highland resident and anti-freeway activist John Howell, who died from complications of HIV in 1988.

During the 1970s and 1980s the VHCA also worked to improve the city's process of home inspection, to develop a resource network of quality, affordable service providers to aid homeowners in renovation, and to encourage developers to lease renovated commercial buildings “as is” at low rates in order to encourage new and unique businesses, and thus a truly distinct commercial district.

In the early 1980s, Atkins Park restaurant was renovated. Meanwhile, Stuart Meddin bought and renovated the 1925 commercial block at North Highland and Virginia.

In 1988, the turn-of-the-century trolley barns on 5 acres (2.0 ha) on Virginia Avenue on the east side of the BeltLine (today's Virginia Highland Apartments) were torn down despite the City Council and VHCA's attempts to save them. Although previously assuring local residents that he favored saving the historic structures, Mayor Andrew Young then vetoed the resolution, and the Council's vote of 11-3 was not enough to override it. Young cited the discovery of asbestos in the buildings and other hazardous materials on the property.

Metro-wide destination

As the neighborhood continued to regentrify, property values increased rapidly; the shops and restaurants became progressively more upscale. Towards the end of the 90s, the neighborhood-oriented character of the business districts gave way to businesses serving patrons from across greater Atlanta. VIrginia-Highland wrestled with traffic and parking issues. Apartments affordable to students became more difficult to find.

A spat between organizers of Summerfest in 2000 and the resulting power-play within the civic association threatened the continuation of the festival, the main source of funding for the VHCA's activities. However, Summerfest did continue as usual in 2001 as one of Atlanta's highest profile neighborhood festivals.

Preservation and balance

In November 2006, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation added Virginia-Highland to its list of "places in peril" due to an acceleration of teardowns and infill projects by real estate developers and newcomers to the area. However, Virginia-Highland remains one of the most architecturally historic, distinct and vibrant neighborhoods in Atlanta.

Residents, through the VHCA, succeeded in getting the city council to pass zoning legislation prescribing development that fits the scale of the streets, rolling back loose zoning ordinances passed in the 1960s. The new zoning also prescribes a maximum number of each type of establishment - restaurants, bars, retail and other types.

The zoning aims to preserve a vibrant mix of enterprises while keeping control noise, parking and traffic issues but also addresses specific problems which came up in 2005-2008:

• Avoiding Virginia Highland suffering the same fate as Buckhead Village, where a large number of bars opened, eventually attracting crime from other areas of the city.
• Fighting a liquor permit for the 700-seat Hilan Theatre).
• Opposing "The Mix@841" project at 841 N. Highland Ave., originally proposed to be 80 feet tall.

In December 2008 the VHCA bought the land land for New Highland Park, a small 0.41 acres (0.17 ha) park at N. Highland and St. Charles.

In Autumn 2010, a rash of seven muggings occurred, statistics which were far lower than those of the 1980s when the neighborhood was edgy, but in 2010 shaking up the neighborhood. Partly in response, the local security patrol, FBAC, expanded patrol coverage to the entire neighborhood. Shortly thereafter in Nov. 2010 Charles Boyer was murdered during a mugging, for which the "Jack Boys" were indicted in Jan. 2011. Police continued to step up patrols and since then Virginia Highland has returned to its status as one of Atlanta's lower-crime neighborhoods.

Currently the neighborhood is enjoying adjacent development projects including a new biking and walking trail along the BeltLine from Piedmont Park to Inman Park, as well as the pending redevelopment of Ponce City Market, the old Sears building, which later became City Hall East. Ponce City Market is slated to become a major multi-use development including a gourmet food hall of national importance. Behind Ponce City Market is the brand new (2011) Historic Fourth Ward Park.

Location

Virginia-Highland is bounded on the north by Amsterdam Avenue and the neighborhood of Morningside, on the east by the Atlanta city limit/Briarcliff Road and the Druid Hills neighborhood, on the south by Ponce de Leon Avenue and the Poncey-Highland neighborhood, and on the west by the BeltLine which is the border with Piedmont Park and Midtown.

Atkins Park

Within these boundaries is Atkins Park, a neighborhood listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The City of Atlanta recognizes Atkins Park as a separate neighborhood, however, Atkins Park is a part of the Virginia-Highland Civic Association.

St. Charles-Greenwood

St. Charles-Greenwood had its own neighborhood association in the 1980s, but was then absorbed into Virginia Highland.

Commercial districts

Virginia Highland is one of many intown Atlanta neighborhoods characterized by commercial space of two sorts:

• groups of small commercial units clustered where the streetcars used to stop (e.g. N. Highland Ave. at St. Charles and Virginia)
• commercial space in former warehouses and industrial buildings, especially, but not exclusively, along the BeltLine (e.g. Amsterdam Walk and Ponce de Leon Place)

Virginia and North Highland

The retail node at the corner of North Highland and Virginia is the neighborhood's namesake and main shopping and dining area. It has been well known since the 1990s for its restaurants. Atlanta institution Murphy's is located at the southwest corner. Such is Virginia Highland's fame that Jeff Fuqua, developer of the 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) Town Brookhaven complex in Brookhaven, described his effort to attract "local, chef-driven" restaurants to Town Brookhaven, and said that he wanted his complex to be a "Virginia Highland North". As of 2011, gourmet food trucks gather every Wednesday night at the corner of N. Highland Ave. and Briarcliff Place.

The "Corner Virginia-Highland" shops on the northwest corner were developed in 1925, renovated in the 1980s and are currently owned by The Meddin Company. In 2009, the property became the first carbon-neutral zone in the U.S., through cooperative work with Verus Carbon Neutral and the Chicago Climate Exchange.

St. Charles and North Highland

Near the corner of St. Charles and N. Highland are numerous restaurants, pubs, and other businesses including:

• the Hilan Theatre (1932)
• Atkins Park Tavern (1922)
• Belly, a delicatessen, formerly the Atkins Park Pharmacy (1914), later Fleeman's Pharmacy

Amsterdam and North Highland

At the northwest corner of Amsterdam Ave. and North Highland Ave. is a complex of restaurants and shops built partially in old industrial space and sharing a parking lot, including the U.S. Post Office, San Francisco Coffee Roasting Company, Highland Pet Supply and restaurants Mali (Thai), DBA Barbeque, and the Original El Taco.

Amsterdam Walk

At the far west end of Amsterdam Ave. between Monroe Ave. and the Belt Line is Amsterdam Walk, over 25 businesses in old warehouse space adjacent to the BeltLine and Piedmont Park. There is a large gym, bars, nightclubs, and specialty retailers selling furniture, jewelry, clothing, floral design, antiques, baked goods, cooking accessories, rugs and more.

The complex was originally part of the Campbell Coal Company warehouse. (Another part of the Campbell complex used to house The Cove nightclub and has now been razed and is being developed as the Piedmont Gardens section of Piedmont Park.) It later became the Thoben Elrod appliance depot, which caught on fire in 1964 with losses of $646,000. In the 1990s it opened as the Midtown Outlets, renamed in the early 2000s as Amsterdam Walk.

Ponce de Leon Avenue

Ponce de Leon Avenue, which forms the southern border of Virginia Highland is also a major commercial artery, some parts of which still show the area's former decline. In June 2011, Jamestown Properties bought City Hall East (the former Sears building), on Ponce at the BeltLine, technically in the Old Fourth Ward. They plan its conversion to Ponce City Market, a retail, culinary, office and residential complex of regional significance, which promises to give a huge boost to commercial activity on Ponce.

Ponce de Leon Avenue in the City of Atlanta is included in the Ponce/Moreland Corridors Plan as part of the city's comprehensive development plan. As of April 2011, the Georgia Department of Transportation has decided to begin the design of safety improvements for pedestrians on the two-mile stretch of Ponce between Piedmont and N. Highland/Moreland. Changes proposed include the conversion of an eastbound traffic lane into a two-way left turn lane. The land would include intermittent islands and "HAWK" pedestrian crossing signals at selected crosswalks where no traffic signals currently exist.

Other commercial districts

• There is a small commercial district at Virginia Ave. and Rosedale Drive
• Backing up to the BeltLine, Ponce de Leon Place, just north of Ponce de Leon Blvd., has old warehouse space housing a gym, fitness studio, Spot doggie day care and boarding, offices, and the huge Paris on Ponce antique emporium.

Strip malls

Just across the BeltLine from the western border of Virginia-Highland are two major strip malls, adjacent to each other and stretching half a mile along the old rail line. Midtown Place opened in 2000 on the site of the old Atlanta Crackers baseball field (Ponce de Leon Park, or Spillers Park) and is accessed from Ponce de Leon Ave. just across from City Hall East. It includes a Home Depot, Whole Foods, and a PetSmart. Midtown Promenade is accessed from Monroe and 8th, or from Virginia Ave. just east of Monroe, and has a Trader Joe's supermarket, an art film cinema multiplex. and numerous restaurants and other businesses.

Ponce City Market

Main article: Ponce City Market

In July 2011, the Jamestown property development company acquired City Hall East (the former Sears building) located where Ponce de Leon Avenue crosses the BeltLine, immediately adjacent to Virginia Highland. Jamestown plans to develop the building into Ponce City Market, with office, retail and residential space. It is to include a nationally significant gourmet food hall, which Jamestown compares to Chelsea Market in New York City, which Jamestown developed, or also to Seattle's Pike Place Market and San Francisco's Ferry Building.

It is hoped that this significant development will anchor the area of the four neighborhoods (Virginia Highland, Midtown, the Old Fourth Ward and Poncey-Highland) that meet at the property's edge.

Name

Newspaper articles from the early 1920s refer to the "Virginia Highland" section of Atlanta with regard to the area around the intersection of Virginia Avenue and Highland Avenue. Later in the 1920s, southeast of this intersection the "Virginia Highlands" (with an "s") subdivision was built. However, neither term appeared again in the press until the 1970s.

During the revolt against the construction of the I-485 freeway through Morningside and what is now Virginia-Highland, a pro-highway group called themselves the "Highland- Virginia Civic Association", claiming to speak for the neighborhood. When Joe Drolet and other residents formed a group to oppose the highway in Fall 1971, they chose the name "Virginia-Highland Civic Association". With the victory of the anti-highway forces, the Virginia-Highland name stuck and started to appear in the press in reference to the entire neighborhood between Amsterdam, Ponce, Piedmont Park and Druid Hills.

Around Atlanta, "Virginia-Highland", "Virginia Highlands" and "the Highlands" are all commonly heard. However, only "Virginia-Highland" is the official name of the neighborhood. The other terms are even included in some business names, but are incorrect.

The term VaHi, imitating the New York style of naming neighborhoods (SoHo, TriBeCa), first was used in the Atlanta newspapers in 1998. It is now in common use as a shortened, playful form or in URLs of neighborhood media and organizations (examples are www.vahi.org, www.vahinews.com and vahi.patch.com).

Architecture

Virginia-Highland is best known for its oldest residences - the Craftsman bungalows that line the streets closest to which or on which the Nine Mile trolley ran: Virginia Avenue, North Highland Avenue, St. Charles Avenue, etc. Other architectural styles include English Vernacular Revival and Colonial Revival, and other house types include English Cottage and American Foursquare.

Besides the commercial buildings noted above, and the churches noted below, some other landmarks of note are:

• Fire station 19 (1924), built in 1924 in the bungalow style. Atlanta's oldest operating fire station at 1063 N. Highland Ave.
• The Adair mansion at 964 Rupley Drive, now divided into apartments
• Briarcliff Hotel (1925) (photo), 1050 Ponce De Leon Ave. at N. Highland.

Virginia-Highland and Atkins Park are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), with Atkins Park having in addition the status of historic overlay district which, unlike a NRHP listing by itself, actually provides for measures to enforce preservation. The VHCA is investigating the possibilities of designating Virginia Highland a historic overlay district as well.

Law and Government

Government

Virginia-Highland is a neighborhood of Atlanta, which unlike in many other cities, are officially defined and organized and given specific areas of control. The Virginia Highland Civic Association consists of a volunteer board and oversees matters controlled at the neighborhood level such as community festivals, community safety, beautification, and efforts to improve parks, sidewalks, etc. As noted above, the Atkins Park neighborhood, while having its own neighborhoods association, participates in the VaHi association much as if it were part of VaHi. Planning, building permits, etc. are controlled by the Neighborhood planning unit F, which also includes Morningside-Lenox Park, Piedmont Heights and Lindridge-Martin Manor.

Crime-prevention

Virginia-Highland serves as a model for other neighborhoods of Atlanta in implementing a comprehensive range of safety measures:

• Virginia-Highland is part of APD patrol zone 6.
• FBAC is the neighborhood security patrol, funded by members, run by volunteers and staffed by off-duty APD officers.
• The VaHi Civic Association organizes a neighborhood watch program via its Safety Team.
• VHAlerts is a system which leverages the text-message features of Twitter to allow members to text-message all other members in case of a dangerous situation in the neighborhood.

Culture and Recreation

Parks

Virginia-Highland borders:

• Atlanta's landmark Piedmont Park (vastly expanded in 2011)
• the BeltLine, a former railroad line, now a 22-mile trail around the central neighborhoods of Atlanta. The BeltLine features dozens of outdoor artworks along its length through the Art on the BeltLine project.

Within the boundaries of Virginia-Highland are:

• John Howell Memorial Park, along Virginia Ave. between Barnett and Arcadia Streets
• Orme Park, bounded by Brookridge Dr. and Elkmont Dr., through which Clear Creek runs
• New Highland Park, which the civic association bought in 2008 and are to be developed in 2011 as an eco-friendly park and rain garden

"Neighborhood Arboretum"

Virginia Highland has one of seven Atlanta "neighborhood arboreta", which are in fact walking routes of trees (identified by markers) in yards, sidewalk planting strips, and parks. A brochure maps out the route and the trees along each route, as well as educating visitors about the trees.

Festivals

Virginia-Highland Summerfest

The VHCA hosts the yearly Summerfest and Virginia-Highland Tour of Homes. In May, Taste of the Highlands in John Howell Park features samplings from favorite neighborhood restaurants and live music.

Religion

Virginia-Highland is home to a number of churches:

• Church of Our Saviour (Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian) - current building mid-1930s
• Druid Hills Presbyterian Church - built 1923, expanded 1940, 1963
• First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church - built 1924
• Virginia Highland Church (formerly Baptist) - built 1923

The Chabad Intown synagogue is located on Ponce de Leon Avenue.

Eruv

The Virginia Highland Eruv covers nearly all of Virginia-Highland as well as part of the Morningside-Lenox Park neighborhood up to E. Rock Springs Road/E. Morningside Drive. The eruv is "marked off" by defining utility poles as "sides of the doorways" and the wires as the "lintels" (tops of doorways). Within its boundaries observant Jews are allowed to do certain things on the Sabbath that they would not normally be allowed to do outside the home, such as carry keys or food.

Education

Henry W. Grady High School

The community is zoned to Atlanta Public Schools.

Zoned schools include:

• Springdale Park Elementary
• Inman Middle School [1]
• Henry W. Grady High School

Transportation

Virginia-Highland is served by the following MARTA bus routes which also connect it to MARTA rail lines:

• 2 along Ponce de Leon to North Avenue rail station or to both Inman Park and Candler Park/Edgewood rail stations
• 6 along Briarcliff to Emory or to Inman Park rail station
• 16 along N. Highland (southbound turns onto Ralph McGill ending at Five Points rail station)
• 36 from Midtown rail station, Virginia Avenue, north on N. Highland, east on Decatur to Emory, Decatur and Avondale rail station
• 99 west from Monroe and Virginia along 10th Street to Midtown rail station; south from Monroe and Virginia along Boulevard

The neighborhood was long served by streetcar line #15 which later became bus line #45. Line 45 was discontinued in 2010.

Noted residents

Noted residents of Virginia Highland include:

• Margaret Edson, 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for the play Wit, as of February 2012 a social-studies teacher at Inman Middle School
• Don Lemon, CNN journalist, author
• Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns, the story of African American migration from the South to the North

External links

Neighborhood organizations and events

• Virginia-Highland Civic Association
• Virginia-Highland Summerfest
• Virginia Highland Business Association
• Atkins Park Neighborhood Association
• Virginia-Highland Connect
• VHAlerts: Virginia-Highland "emergency broadcast system"
• Virginia Highland FBAC Security Patrol

About Virginia-Highland

• VaHiNews.com - Virginia Highland News
• Video snapshot of Virginia Highland
• History of Virginia-Highland
• Historic photos of Virginia-Highland
• History of Atkins Park
• National Register of Historic Places Registration Form - architecture of Virginia Highland

References

• Hobson-Pape, Karri; Lola Carlisle (2011). Virginia-Highland. Images of America. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0738588024. http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=9780738588025. Retrieved 2011-09-08. 
• McAuley & Burkhalter, ATLANTAboy, Mega Niche Media, ISBN 0-9707095-6-0
• History of Virginia-Highland, Compiled June 1998 by City of Atlanta; Department of Planning, Development, and Neighborhood Conservation; Bureau of Planning