Foreword | Lee May
Piedmont Park, Atlanta’s green oasis graced with water, pathways, and play areas, is in many ways a universal example of our need to spend time in the open air, connecting with others and with the natural world. People in places ranging from the wildlife preserves of Africa to ruggedly beautiful lands in the American West, to the tidy little greens of New England look for that same natural connection—as do visitors to Piedmont Park.
At the same time that Piedmont plays its unique role, it also holds up a mirror to Atlanta, reflecting the city’s history, its spirit, concerns, showing images of its pleasures and progress.
Like the city itself, this near-downtown space has changed mightily with the times, going back to 1887 when a group of well-to-do Atlantans bought 189 acres of farmland that was used variously, then sold to the city of Atlanta for parkland in 1904. With that, Piedmont Park officially began serving as Atlanta’s natural meeting place.
Now, in the pages of Piedmont Park: Celebrating Atlanta’s Common Ground, which could be called a birthday book, the park’s century-old story unfolds in pictures and words. Archival photographs, along with writings from a range of contributors help hold up the park’s looking glass. So we can see ourselves.
Look, here is Atlanta in the 1880s and 1890s, already filled with big ambitions and a healthy self-image. And what better way to tell the world of the Piedmont South’s charms than to hold the Piedmont and then the Cotton States and International expositions in the huge space that naturally came to be called Piedmont Park. Embracing new technology and racially integrated audiences, Atlanta, city of hustle, gave birth to the New South.
Alas, who do we see in the first half of the twentieth century but Jim Crow, looking back at us, declaring the park open to whites only—like just about everything else that ostensibly belonged to the public.
During the 1960s love replaced hate, and Piedmont was there, waiting as longhairs wearing flowers and beads dropped in, just to see what condition their condition was in. Who among us Piedmont visitors hasn’t heard the syncopated rhythms of Bob Marley’s music, floating on a pungent haze, provoking children to ask, “Daddy, what’s that smell?”
And, in the 1970s, as many aging hippies made a sharp turn toward physical fitness, Piedmont flourished as a destination for the masses huffing into the park each Fourth of July, gasping for air and grasping the coveted T-shirt that proclaimed us finishers of the Peachtree Road Race.
How much we asked of one place. How much it gave.
On many a sun-drenched day, I went there in the seventies, sometimes taking a walk, other times taking my young daughter, so I could see her see nature, so I could enjoy the sounds and sights of countless birds and trees and appreciate the stonily evocative architecture. On some days it seemed the entire population of Atlanta was gathered on this one beautiful spot of green. Skaters, festival-goers, fishers, tennis players, ball players, runners, walkers, bikers, lovers, dopers, smokers. Dogs. All were drawn to Atlanta’s green center. We were loving the park to death.
So, even as the surrounding area attracted young, upwardly mobile singles and families, we saw the park descend into decay and crime.
Fortunately, the park’s story didn’t end there. The times changed. We changed. In the late 1980s and 1990s, we gained a renewed sense of the importance of Piedmont Park. In time for its centennial, the park’s turnaround began, supported by a partnership of the city and the nonprofit Piedmont Park Conservancy. Recently I spent several hours touring the park with members of the PPC, enjoying the beautifully restored lake, landscaping, renovated buildings, all of which made me want to make sure my grandchildren see what I saw.
Maybe the change stems from our need for a counterpoint to the ubiquity of technology, relief from the tethers that bind us all: cell phones, pagers, computers. The stress of living in a world more uncertain than ever. Maybe it struck us that this green public space amounts to the city’s garden. And in any way we can, we’re all trying to get back to the garden.