file under: who are they kidding?
on thanksgiving i was headed over to my buddy’s place for thanksgiving. he lives in grove park, just past the intersection of bankhead highway and west lake drive. as i was driving up west lake to his place i noticed that the city of atlanta had renamed simpson road to something silly like joseph boone avenue.
is atlanta the only place that does this thing? i wonder if they really think that by renaming street with a reputation for crime and decay that anyone is going to get fooled.
how many of you are now willing to roll down bankhead just because it is now called donald lee hollowell parkway?
a short list just off the top of my head –
stewart ave becomes metropolitan parkway
lakewood freeway becomes langford parkway
bankhead highway becomes hollowell parkway
hightower road becomes james jackson parkway
simpson road apparently becomes boone ave
any i am missing?
oh and do you ever wonder who the poor saps are that are having these streets renamed after them?
the other thing this got me to thinking about is this: if they keeping renaming all of these streets over on the westside, how is poor t.i. going to be able to find his way around atlanta? if you have no idea what i am talking about check out this map of t.i.’s classic ‘ride wit’ me’ that i made in google maps whilst bored one night.
Techwood.
yes indeed.
This actually isn’t a new phenomenon. In the 1900’s, they changed Thompson Street downtown to Madison Avenue because of its reputation. Then they built a viaduct, and eventually changed Madison Avenue to Spring Street since it now connected to Spring Street north of the railroad gulch. This is the portion of Spring Street that runs by the Richard Russell Federal Courthouse and the old Norfolk Southern buildings.
You are also forgetting that Ivy Street is now Peachtree Center Avenue; Cain Street became International Blvd, then Andrew Young International Blvd; Houston Street became John Wesley Dobbs; Whitehall became Peachtree for the piece that is downtown; those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. You can find more here. Oh, and we just renamed part of Jones Ave to Ivan Allen, Jr. I think that West Peachtree through downtown was actually once Peachtree Street, but the road got too muddy and impassible so they just detoured it off to the side for a stretch. this was of course years and years ago…
nerd ;-)
[…] hah. i’d love to ride that route. oh and clearly no one has told marta that that street is no longer called simpson road. […]