Yes, Atlanta had a thriving hippie scene in the late 1960s. And its hub was in what folks today may only know as a tony area of Midtown.
While San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and New York's Greenwich Village are the most noted counterculture scenes during the Vietnam Era, "The Strip" along Peachtree Street between 8th and 14th Streets in Midtown was Atlanta's realm of the outre. That's right -- the current home of all those fancy financiers? It's where Atlanta's hippies tuned in, turned on and perhaps dropped out.
By the '70s, though, The Strip and Midtown had turned, well, seedy. Drug addicts and prostitutes claimed the area for themselves.
This being Atlanta, developers had other ideas. As the '80s loomed, the business community looked at Midtown as a diamond in the rough. The Colony Square office/entertainment complex anchored what would become one of the city's hottest real estate areas, a trend that shows no signs of cooling soon. Groups like the Midtown Alliance worked to meld the historic neighborhoods and new businesses into what's become a thriving live-work-play community.
But it's fun to recall the district from days gone by, so we invite you to step into our Wayback Machine and see the many faces of Midtown Atlanta.
VIEW ATLANTA'S HISTORY THROUGH THE LENSES OF THE AJC AND GSU DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
