Let’s walk over to the Plaza and catch a flick
Photo credit: Karla Jean Davis via Flickr
I recently interviewed Jonathan Rej, the co-owner of the Plaza Theater, for the AJC and our conversation touched on so many different topics.
My main interest for the AJC piece was finding out about the theater’s transition last year from a for-profit enterprise to a nonprofit (the story was originally meant to run in the business section).
You can see his compelling answers in the Q&A that the AJC ran yesterday here. Unfortunately, much of the Q&A focuses on the challenges Rej and his wife face as they try to keep the historic 1939 art deco theater afloat.
But not all of the cool stuff we talked about could make it into the Q&A.
And me being me, I couldn’t help but bring the conversation around to walkable neighborhoods.
And I was sort of thinking out loud about the difficulties of running the theater, and I said, “Is there anything wrong with the location?”
As you know the theater is in Poncey-Highland, a really great city neighborhood. So as soon as I said it, I withdrew the question because, well, how could it be a problem to be located in Poncey-Highland?
Jonathan said the neighborhood is great — a vibrant commercial core surrounded by strong residential base — and it attracts just the type of person the theater wants as a regular customer.
But he and I agreed that unfortunately many people who live in the neighborhood probably don’t even think about walking over to the theater.
“I wish more people were into that,” Rej said. “Some people don’t even know it’s an operating theater. We’ll get people knocking on the doors and they say, ‘What are you doing in there?’ And we say, ‘Well, we’re running the theater.’ They don’t even realize it’s a working theater.”
Of course, that’s how it originally worked: the Plaza was a neighborhood theater that served that neighborhood; other neighborhoods had their own theaters (now all closed).
I used to live in a small city in eastern Pennsylvania, and in my neighborhood, there was an old art deco theater from 1929, just like the Plaza. And I walked over to the theater all the time to see independent films.
And I think it’s logical to think a lot of people who live in Poncey-Highland do the same.
But it would appear they don’t.
I think there are so many businesses in Atlanta that are failing not because they don’t have a good idea or don’t serve tasty food or sell nice clothing. They’re just simply waiting for the city to become like almost every other city in the world — a place where people walk around for leisure, to be social, to see and be seen, to get some exercise, etc, and while they walk around, they visit shops, restaurants and other businesses.
Why do I harp on this topic?
There are many reasons but one reason is that making the city more walkable benefits everyone. Meaning, it even benefits the guy who thinks all of us intown residents are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals who want to live in communes.
Why? Because if we could walk to more places, there would be more spots to congregate, and commercial businesses pop up around meeting spots (Or indeed create their own meeting spots).
So the guy who lives in Sandy Springs can keep driving his car everywhere but he can also open a lucrative business in the city that’s fueled by walking urbanites.
Do you ever read the dining section of the New York Times? A new restaurant opens there every minute, it seems. They NEVER run out of restaurants to review. And oftentimes, these restaurants are opening in neighborhoods that are already overflowing with other restaurants.
But when you have a captive audience of people who don’t drive, or don’t want to drive, I think you have a good start.
I know the Poncey-Highland Neighborhood Association is working on a master plan that will promote walking and biking, and councilman Kwanza Hall has been instrumental in the effort.
I just hope something changes soon. Because I would really hate to see the Plaza close. Or as Rej puts it, become a Gap.
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Comments
11 Comments on Let’s walk over to the Plaza and catch a flick
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jurban on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 9:32 am
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jurban on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 9:33 am
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Darin on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 10:12 am
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Jeanne Bonner on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 11:14 am
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Darin on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 12:09 pm
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Jack Stenger on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 12:49 pm
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Lauren on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 2:23 pm
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Piedmont on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 5:34 pm
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jurban on
Wed, 3rd Mar 2010 10:30 pm
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Darin on
Thu, 4th Mar 2010 12:26 am
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GPBurdell93 on
Thu, 4th Mar 2010 4:55 pm
I think a lot of us intowners talk the talk and don’t walk the walk, so to say. We love the idea of our little walkable neighborhoods and glorify our ability to live this “urban” lifestyle, but too often we act like suburbanites and drive. Let’s face it: much of Atlanta, even intown, is not that pleasant to walk. I don’t live near the theater, but even if I did, I’m not sure I would walk there often. Who wants to wak down Ponce? And I’m not just talking about the “odd” people that inhabit the strip, I’m talking about the physical features.
*walk
Very true, Jurban. Until a few years ago, my family lived for three years in a condo two blocks north of the Plaza Theatre, and for part of that time I was without a car and walked everywhere I needed to go (outside of commuting to work). It was very convenient to have a CVS, Publix, parks, a library and lots of restaurant/entertainment in walking distance of our house, but getting to all those places often involved crossing unpleasantly dangerous streets and parking lot entrances.
Getting to Publix was the worst. That shopping center is very difficult to approach from the north as a pedestrian. Just crossing Ponce near the library was death defying as so many cars run the red light there — something I never noticed until I became a pedestrian in the area. Over time I noticed that the sidewalks in lower ViHi and Poncey Highland are used as jogging trails much moreso than as pedestrian routes and that just got kinda sad so we moved to the Peachtree corridor where things are a little better.
There is room for a LOT of sidewalk improvement in this area to make walking more pleasant. Who in the name of Giggly came up with those wretched hexagonal blocks that uproot so easily?
Jeanne, I think you’re dead on about local businesses in potentially walkable areas waiting for the city to become a place where people walk around for leisure. I know I am! I just hope it happens before I get fed up and move to Boston (we’re actually planning to do the latter in 3 years unless ATL steps up and becomes more of the pedestrian-friendly city where we want to live).
I hate to say it, but I think Jurban is right on both points: many intowners drive just as often as suburbanites and many of the sidewalks and streetscaping intown are atrocious.
I often find myself walking places where I just think, really a person was not meant to walk here. Specifically I mean Memorial Drive, parts of Boulevard, Dekalb Avenue, even parts of Krog Street, Moreland, etc.
Darin, you raise lots of great points. I know what you’re saying about the area around the Publix, etc — sure there are sidewalks, but walking there is not easy.
I always have to laugh/cry when I see the Starbucks on Moreland in Little Five Points. I mean, Starbucks would have us believe they are all about sophisticated urbanites but there is actually no pedestrian entrance to the place. Sure it’s a short walk across the parking lot but you know how that can go with Atlanta drivers!
“…many intowners drive just as often as suburbanites …”
This is a really sad reality to me. The most popular intown retail areas are not in convenient walking distance to a MARTA station (L5P, ViHi, Plaza, Midtown Promendade, the list goes on and on). They are dependent on car traffic because the nearby residential areas are composed of so much low density, detached housing that there aren’t enough people in easy walking distance to support the businesses.
It took me a couple of years as a Midtown resident to realize it — the pattern of residential connectivity to local shopping and entertainment intown is very similar to what I tried to leave behind in the suburbs of East Cobb. The drives are shorter intown, but they’re still drives instead of walks or transit rides. I do my best to use only MARTA on the weekends when I go out, but it’s hard to stick to it with so many desirable destinations being car-dependent.
Everyone is on point. (“Long live the Plaza Theater!”) Why – we all wonder – is Atlanta so retrograde compared to other American cities? Why do we read of real progress in other cities on these important pedestrian-livability fronts while here things of such nature are just discussions among us like-minded folk? Why are even intowners here so unevolved, car-dependent and walking/biking averse? I could just rationalize that the “Why” to all the above is because we’re in the former (backwater) Confederacy and old agrarian habits die hard. But that statement would be ignoring the light years that, say, Charlotte, is ahead of dysfunctional ATL. (All of these questions are important to many of us, those who have no escape hatch to Boston in the offing …)
Jeanne – I’m actually trying to get in touch with you about a piece on community gardens. Not sure how much you’ve been following the debate in Inman Park or the newly created “Artichoke Bliss” garden on Edgewood, but I think residents need to know the value of community gardens for a healthy and connected neighborhood. Can you contact me at the email address above? I tried Ken’s email that is listed on this site, but it’s full. Thanks!!
Can’t say i disagree with any of this. The main difference is we didn’t grow up as a walking city whereas Boston did. So having Boston as an aspiration may be unrealistic but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a great, liveable, walkable Atlanta.
To me the key is clean, reliable, local, transportation. Streetcars would be awesome but that’s a big task. There is no reason we can’t have a rubber-tire trolley serving our neighborhoods. A short trip option would fuel pedestrian traffic. Midtown-Piedmont park is perfect for this.
It’s true- the way we developed was not conducive to walking. The majority of the most popular intown areas were developed as trolley suburbs, so without that form of transportation, walking is just not feasible many times. Atlanta developed these linear commercial strips next to (admittedly very pretty) leafy, winding streets full of single family homes. Urbanism this does not make. We do not have a legible street grid outside of parts of Midtown and Downtown, and even where we do, the blocks are often too big. So speed up to present day, and we’re basically screwed. Because to change the face of the city, chop it up into walkable blocks, would destroy what is seen as Atlanta’s greatest assets – its leafy neighborhoods. Even changes that aren’t that drastic are fiercely opposed by many intowners who own these homes. This came up pretty recently with the plan for 10th and Monroe that was hatched by the Beltline people. According to the plan, this area would hopefully be built out with mid-low rise mixed use buildings making that intersection into really a better version of Va-Hi. Residents of nearby neighborhoods came out in fierce opposition, siting traffic and height concerns. They would rather have more open space. And I think it’s so funny that a mid-rise already exists there; like that has totally ruined the neighborhood.
Yeah, sometimes I do wonder if we are basically screwed when it comes to having any widespread transit connectivity of the popular intown neighborhoods in East Midtown. The homeowners there have a heavy investment (understandably so, given the values) in keeping these leafy, car-dependent neighborhoods exactly like they are and fighting change.
It’s a double-edged sword. The massive land area in Atlanta devoted to low-density, single-home neighborhoods serves as an attractive draw for people who favor that environment and simultaneously acts as a near-impossible hurdle to overcome when it comes to developing transit lines.
I actually have more hope for some day seeing walkable neighborhoods with feasible transit possibilities in West Midtown than on the East end. The landscape over there seems more pliable. The Memorial Drive corridor has some good smart growth opportunities, too, as it probably lacks the NIMBYist tendencies of ViHi and other establish neighborhoods (plus, Memorial is probably wide enough for a BRT or light rail line, whereas you can’t do anything with narrow Highland Ave for the recent density there near Inman Park).
My guess is that those areas, plus the gridded streets of central Downtown and the Peachtree corridor of Midtown, are probably the city’s best hope for truly walkable neighborhoods of the future. I’d like to see a focus on smart growth-style infill with human-scale, mixed-use buildings. pocket parks and other public spaces in those areas.
Count me as a walker. I walk to & from work (about 15 blocks one-way) every day. That’s straight up & down Peachtree St., but I’ll also walk out Ponce to the Midtown Shops, and I’ve been known to walk all the way to Poncey-Highlands, as well. That last is a bit of a hike–2 miles & a decent hill around City Hall East, but this is Atlanta–most of the year, the weather’s beautiful!
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