Riverbend remembered as a decade-long party

Until 1972, you couldn’t buy a mixed drink in Cobb County. Its congressman was a member of the John Birch Society. Though growth was imminent, Cobb was more country than city.

But even here, in one of the nation’s most reliably conservative areas, the cultural upheaval that defined the ’70s couldn’t be stopped.

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Paul Freeman

Paul Freeman, dubbed the “King of Riverbend,” partied at the complex in the 1970s.

THAT SEVENTIES CITY:

• Introduction
• Politics: A big change was coming
• The Mouth of the South
• MARTA: A train to greatness
• The hottest spots were Underground
• City quickly became a destination
• Riverbend a decade-long party
• Timeline of the decade

• Photos: Scenes | Politics | People
• YOUR TURN: Send us your '70s photos! | Tell us what you remember — or don't remember — about the 1970s in Atlanta?

Complete coverage

Its de facto headquarters was the randy Riverbend Apartments, a leafy enclave overlooking the Chattahoochee River off I-285.

Debauchery reigned. No less an authority than Playboy magazine deemed the swinging singles complex “ground zero” of the sexual revolution.

“There was a real euphoria going around in those times,” said Paul Freeman, dubbed the “King of Riverbend” by longtime Atlanta comic Jerry Farber.

Neither could recall how Freeman got that moniker. Which is sort of the point, considering most of its residents spent the decade under the influence.

“The hippie was on his way to becoming a yuppie,” Freeman observed of the times.

But first, a decade-long party.

At Riverbend, weekends started on Wednesdays, typically in the complex’s notorious clubhouse. The revelry had no boundaries, few rules and, for a brief, blissful period, minimal consequences.

“We were the Quaalude generation,” said Freeman, now 59. “They called it the sex drug.”

Locals had a more clinical name, one best ignored in a family newspaper.

Freeman was among Atlanta’s many natives back then, raised in the Morningside neighborhood.

“At that time, there was practically nobody in Atlanta from someplace else,” said Freeman. “You knew everybody, which was good in some ways, but you didn’t get away with much.”

That began changing in the ’70s, as Northerners fleeing high unemployment and urban decay headed south in droves. The city had a new handle: “Hotlanta.”

“The city was growing; there were plenty of jobs and even more great-looking women,” Freeman said. “You had a lot of young people moving in. Combine all that, and you’ve got a big party.”

Riverbend was the Chattahoochee’s very own Hedonism resort, former AJC columnist Ron Hudspeth recalled in a 2004 retrospective. Clothing was optional, and the beer taps never ran dry, he wrote.

“People were very uninhibited,” Freeman said. “You just didn’t worry about things back then. Take a pill, and it would go away, and you’d start over the next weekend.”

Or so they thought. As the decade neared its end, the hangovers — both literal and metaphorical — became too much to bear.

“It was dying down pretty fast,” Freeman said of Riverbend in the late ’70s. “People were moving to newer complexes, or getting married. Some of those wild parties turned into couples’ parties.”

Even Freeman moved on, leaving Riverbend in 1978. He married, had kids, got a house in Sandy Springs.

Riverbend, since renamed “Walton on the Chattahoochee,” is no longer a destination address — just one apartment complex among many. Good thing its hot tub can’t talk.

Looking back, Freeman said, “the ’80s were pretty good, but there was something very special about that place and that time.”

And the good thing about memories: No consequences.