If only this photo had been available in 2015 ….
I would love to use it in my Decatur book. The image speaks to so many things about Decatur’s gentrified Oakhurst community specifically and the city generally.
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A landfill is no place for “missing middle housing”
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In 2003, Decatur, Ga., playwright Valetta Anderson, her partner Cotis Weaver, and several neighbors sued the City of Decatur to prevent the redevelopment of an apartment building into high-end townhomes. The lawsuit and conversation it started could have been a turning point for Decatur to preserve affordable housing and diversity. Instead, the city went in a different direction.
Now, 20 years later, the home Anderson and Weaver lived in, along with hundreds of other affordable single- and multi-family homes have been demolished and sent to landfills. Earlier this year, the City of Decatur was forced to confront more than 20 years of policy missteps by amending its zoning ordinance to allow for so-called “missing middle housing.” The problem is, the city had lots of missing middle housing (and diversity).
Continue readingMaxwell Street, Decatur, Ga.
I have an assignment to write an article on affordable housing in Decatur, Ga. It’s been a while since I surfed through Zillow to see what things are selling for in the city’s Oakhurst neighborhood. I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw this map.
I can recall that in 2014, Oakhurst’s first million-dollar house went on the market. I can’t imagine a house on Maxwell Street selling for 2.75 million or another one a block away from where we once lived selling for 1.28 million.
For a taste of what Oakhurst’s Maxwell Street looked like a little over a decade ago, here’s a video I cobbled together documenting the transformation of one lot, one of the first teardown-mansionization conversions. Many of the houses pictured in the driving scene at the end are now gone. So, too, are the people who once lived in them.
I made the Maxwell Street video two years before a different builder transformed another one of the lots into a spectacle by tearing down a small home built in the 1940s and building what he dubbed a “1,000 Year House.” The builder live-tweeted and blogged about the project, from start to finish. The real farce was how city officials and others bought into the hype that the new brick manor was somehow affordable and sustainable.
There are many more examples over on the Ruined Decatur site.
©2023 D.S. Rotenstein
Missing Middle Housing
I found Decatur, Ga.’s “missing middle” housing. It turns out that it wasn’t missing after all. Most of it — affordable apartments, duplexes, etc. — ended up in Atlanta area landfills. A snapshot from 2011-2014 appears in the Ruined Decatur blog.
All the news that’s missing
How can a self-styled publisher/editor/reporter have “One Of The Oldest Women In The World” living in his community of only 20,000 people and not know it?
Or, how did the Washington Post and suburban news outlets miss what the residents in a historically Black community were telling them for years about an old bridge?
I am looking for sources who can speak to the role journalism plays in gentrification and erasure. Have a story? Let’s talk.
Eulogy [Updated]
Earlier this week I got a Facebook message from a friend who lives in Decatur, Ga.: “More construction in Decatur Oakview Rd.”
I am used to messages like this. They have arrived via email, Twitter, Facebook, and text for the past decade. Many of them come from people like my 60-something Decatur friend: the senders are Black, elderly, and many have been lifelong Decatur residents. They include photos of buildings being demolished and the McMansions that replace them. They also include comments about displacement and racism. For years these folks have tried to get relief from city officials and to get their stories told by the press.
Unlike local bloggers, overworked newspaper reporters, and disinterested broadcast journalists, I listened and I wrote. A lot. I earned the trust of a lot Decatur residents while also angering many others invested in the myth of a liberal and progressive city that only exists in their minds and the city’s flashy advertising campaigns.
The site shown in the message I received is located on Oakview Road, between Second and Third avenues, just inside the Decatur city limits. Until last year, it was one of the Oakhurst neighborhood’s few surviving twentieth century commercial nodes. The one-story buildings occupied by a beauty parlor and grocery store had been community fixtures for decades.
A Decatur, Georgia, Recap
Professional accomplishments directly resulting from my research in and about Decatur, Georgia, 2011-2023. No, it’s not a game.
September 6, 2023: “Decatur Day and the History of Serial Displacement in an Atlanta Suburb.” The Metropole (Urban History Association blog).
April 24, 2023: “Our Missing Middle Housing Didn’t Just Go Missing. It Was Torn Down.” Next City.
August 6, 2022: “Heirs, History, and Land: Recovering and Conserving Black Spaces and Stories.” Featured presentation, Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot Family Reunion and Historical Marker Unveiling, Berry College, Rome, Georgia. (Delivered remotely.)
July 2022: Agnes Scott College is awarded a $750,000 Mellon Foundation grant to conduct research, community engagement, and develop curriculum on race and racism in Decatur, Ga. The grant application relied on my research; the institution wrote that if the grant is awarded that the college would seek to hire me as a researcher and adjunct professor. It would have been nice if Agnes Scott College had consulted with me prior to using my name and my credentials in the application. Needless to say, I did not collaborate with Agnes Scott College on its project.
January 2022: Georgia Tech History Professor Todd Michney invites me to participate in a panel on redlining, housing and race for the 2022 Atlanta Studies Symposium. My paper was accepted and the panel was scheduled to present on May 6, 2022. My participation in planning the session included providing the name for the panel, “Spatial Imaginaries, Racial Realities: Boundaries and a Changing Atlanta Metropolitan Area.” Work obligations in Pittsburgh prevented me from presenting my paper.
June 2021: The City of Decatur in collaboration with the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights developed a Juneteenth walking tour of downtown Decatur based entirely on a walking tour that I designed for the National Council on Public History’s 2020 Atlanta conference, the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour (see below).
May 29, 2021: Members of The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights invited me to be a speaker at the 2021 Decatur Juneteenth celebration.
May 28, 2021: The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights invited me to be a member of its Reparations Committee.
May 5, 2021: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for Decatur High School educators and professional staff.
April 21, 2021: Invited virtual presentation, “Gentrification’s Consequences in Decatur: Displacement, Erasure, and the Environment,” to students enrolled in Agnes Scott College’s history program.
April 20, 2021: Members of the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights and the Coalition for a Diverse Decatur & Coalition for a Diverse Dekalb invited me to give an illustrated virtual presentation about asset mapping.
March 22, 2021: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour presented virtually for a class in Agnes Scott College’s Department of History.
March 7, 2021: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, Decatur, Georgia.
October 9, 2020: Invited Presentation, “Silver Spring Sundown Suburb,” for The Well Community Church in Silver Spring, Maryland.
September 23, 2020: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights.
September 23, 2020: Invited presentation, “A Path to Reconciliation and Repair: Telling the Full Story on Race and History in Montgomery County,” for members of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Bar.
September 10, 2020: “A Virtual Walking Tour in Decatur, Georgia: Linking Race, History, Community,” published in History@Work (National Council on Public History).
July 27, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” presented virtually for the Goucher College Masters in Historic Preservation Program and Decatur, Ga., community members. This event was documented in my Sept. 10, 2020, History@Work Article, “A Virtual Walking Tour in Decatur, Georgia: Linking Race, History, and Community.”
March 21, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased: The Black Experience in Decatur, Georgia” walking tour conducted for the National Council on Public History 2020 annual conference. The conference and walking tour shifted online after the onset of the Covid pandemic.
February 7, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour and classroom lecture, Agnes Scott College Department of History, Decatur, Ga.
2020: Brock, Julia, Elayne Washington Hunter, Robin Morris, and Shaneé Murrain. “‘Send Out a Little Light’: The Antioch A.M.E. Digital Archive.” In Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy, edited by Rebecca S. Wingo, Jason A. Heppler, and Paul Schaderwald, 2020. Book chapter inspired by “Antioch’s Eyes” (see below).
October 18, 2019: “Historic Preservation and Folklore: Dismantling the Diversity Deficit” delivered at the 2019 American Folklore Society meeting, Baltimore, Maryland.
October 2019: Published: “The Decatur Plan: Folklore, Historic Preservation, and the Black Experience in Gentrifying Spaces.” The Journal of American Folklore 132, no. 526 (2019): 431–51.
August 14, 2019: Bethesda Magazine reports that the Montgomery County, Md., school system completed an audit of school names in the wake of the decision to rename E. Brooke Lee Middle School (see below).
April 13, 2019: Invited lecture, “Silver Spring: A Sundown Suburb in the Capital’s Gateway,” Gwendolyn E. Coffield Community Center, Silver Spring, Md.
April 5, 2019: Invited panelist, “A Conversation on Atlanta, Georgia,” sponsored by the Black Geographies Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
April 2, 2019: Invited lecture, “Sundown Suburbs,” University of Maryland African American Studies Program.
March 13, 2019: “Competing Histories or Hidden Transcripts? The Sources We Use,” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
February 14, 2019: Montgomery County newspapers report on request by County Council President to change the name of E. Brooke Lee Middle School. My March 2017 Washington Post article, “There’s More to Fighting Racism than Getting Rid of a Confederate Statue,” is cited as the impetus. Umaña, José. “Navarro Requests Name Change for Middle School,” The Montgomery County Sentinel.
2018: “Producing and Protesting Invisibility in Silver Spring, Maryland.” In Demand the Impossible: Essays in History as Activism, edited by Nathan Wuertenberg and William Horne, 89–111. Washington, D.C.: Westphalia Press, 2018.
September 14, 2017: “Why Diversity Initiatives Rarely Make Gentrifying Neighborhoods More Equitable.” Next City (blog), September 14, 2017.
March 5, 2017: “There’s More to Fighting Racism than Getting Rid of a Confederate Statue.” The Washington Post, March 5, 2017.
December 14, 2016. Ritter, Ellie. “Tearing Down Decatur’s History: As Luxurious Houses Replace Small Homes, Gentrification Forces Minorities Out.” Carpe Diem (Decatur High School Student Magazine), December 14, 2016. I was interviewed for the article and I provided the illustrations.
July 11, 2016: Zainaldin, Jamil. “Digital History in the Making with Antioch A.M.E. History Project.” Saporta Report (blog), July 11, 2016.
April 14, 2016: “(Re)-Imagining Decatur: Gentrification, Race, and History in a Southern Suburb,” Delta Symposium, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas.
February 18, 2016: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, The Potter’s House, Washington, D.C.
2016: David Rotenstein Collection, Antioch A.M.E. Digital Archive.
2016: “Historic Preservation Shines a Light on a Dark Past.” In Preserving Places: Reflections on the National Historic Preservation Act at Fifty from The Public Historian, edited by Tamara Gaskell, 18–19. National Council on Public History, 2016.
October 27, 2015: “I Had to Move After Exposing the Seamy History of the City of Decatur, Georgia.” History News Network (blog).
July 28, 2015: “Historic Preservation Shines a Light on a Dark Past.” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog), July 28, 2015.
March 29, 2015: “Doing Public History: This Is What Success Can Look Like,” History News Network (blog).
March 20, 2015: “Fragile History in a Gentrifying Neighborhood.” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
February 22, 2015: “When a City Turns White, What Happens to Its Black History?” History News Network (blog).
October 18, 2014: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Decatur, Ga.
September 2014: “Antioch’s Eyes,” The Anchor (newsletter of Antioch A.M.E. Church), pp. 1-2, Stone Mountain, Ga. Article reprinted from a blog post, “Antioch’s Eyes,” published on my site January 29, 2014.
April 14, 2014: “From Urban Homesteading to Mazeway Disintegration: Gentrification in Decatur,1975-2014.” Paper presented at the Second Annual Atlanta Studies Symposium.
April 11, 2014: “A Lesson in Racial Profiling and Historical Relevance,” Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch (reprinted from History@Work).
March 11, 2014: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, Charis Books and More, Atlanta, Ga.
April 10, 2014: “A lesson in racial profiling and historical relevance,” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
July 3, 2013: “Clinging to Jim Crow Through Historic Preservation.” Like the Dew (blog), July 3, 2013. Site defunct; no archive copy; Also posted on my blog, July 8, 2013 as “Separate and Unequal: Preserving Jim Crow.”
September 21, 2012: “Preservation conversations: When history at work is history at home (Part II),” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
September 14, 2012: “Preservation conversations: When history at work is history at home (Part I),” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
May 2012: “Decatur’s African American Historic Landscape.” Reflections (Ga. State Historic Preservation Office) 10, no. 3 (May 2012): 5–7.
2012: “Reviving South Decatur Through Urban Homesteading.” Times of DeKalb, DeKalb History Center newsletter, 6, no. 2 (2012): 1, 4–5.
2011: “Decatur’s Oakhurst: A Subdivision and A Castle,” Times of DeKalb, DeKalb History Center newsletter, 5, no. 4 (2012): 2-3.
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Where history goes to die
Historic preservation is where history goes to die. One of its graves can be found in Pittsburgh’s Strip District which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2014, with a period of significance from 1850-1964.
It’s as if all history ends with the 50-year criterion and consultants can’t see Criteria Consideration G properties or traditional cultural properties (TCPs) right in front of their faces. Like many industrial districts throughout the world, Pittsburgh’s Strip District changed (technology, economics) and nightclubs, restaurants, artists, etc. began moving in. Some of these changes can rightly be called gentrification. Low rents, cool buildings, and a certain vibe attracted entertainment entrepreneurs in the 1980s-1990s. LGBTQ culture developed a strong foothold there, with bars like Cruze on Smallman Street. The bar closed in 2019, displaced by development (there’s now a parking deck at the site). The only evidence of Cruze in the National Register nomination are a couple of Smallman Street streetscape photos that captured the bar’s facade.
The Real Luck Cafe (Luck’s) is another gay bar whose building is a contributing property to the Strip Historic District. Its history is similarly erased in the National Register nomination. Readers looking for the landmark bar’s history will only find a couple of sentences describing the building’s exterior and a mention of the jeweler who owned the building between 1869 and 1890. For a more complete understand of the bar and its cultural context, folks are better off exploring the work of the Pittsburgh Queer History Project, especially the 2014 “Lucky After Dark” exhibition that debuted the same year that the Strip Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Another good source would be Dr. Harrison Apple’s 2021 University of Arizona PhD dissertation, “A Social Member in Good Standing: Pittsburgh’s Gay After-Hours Social Clubs, 1960-1990.”
© 2022 D.S. Rotenstein
Decatur City Schools
This summer I am teaching a graduate seminar on ethnography and community engagement for historic preservation. For the the final day of the virtual residency, I will be re-creating the Decatur, Georgia, walking tour that I did for the 2020 National Council on Public History (virtual) conference.
This version will be a little different because our world has changed dramatically since March. The tour focuses on the intersection of racism, municipal planning, and historic preservation. For this iteration I will be using interviews with Decatur residents that I did between 2011 and 2018.
The clips I am using drill down into how the city’s schools have reinforced structural racism, from Jim Crow segregation to efforts to resist integration to racial curriculum tracking. City leaders have weaponized the school system to create an environment that is hostile to Black children and their caretakers.
In the interviews that I did, I collected accounts of real estate speculators threatening grandparents with children in the schools. The city makes it possible for people to file anonymous tips to report children attending the schools who are not living with their parents inside the city limits. People told me about real estate speculators who approached elderly African American homeowners with unsolicited offers to sell their homes. When the homeowners declined the offers, the real estate speculators threatened to report them to the City Schools of Decatur because grandchildren or nephews and nieces were living with them.
Such reports result in removal of the children from the school system and possible fines and criminal charges for the adults.
This brief clip (which isn’t part of the tour) has one woman telling me about the city’s successful effort to purge her granddaughter from the city’s schools.
https://youtu.be/QeUhQKyoJYQ
© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein
The right kind of people
Last week the Pittsburgh Planning Commission agreed with a recommendation forwarded to it by the city’s Historic Review Commission that an 1840s house in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood is eligible for designation as a city historic landmark.
The Ewalt Mansion is a two-story brick Greek Revival home built by an early Pittsburgh resident, Samuel Ewalt. According to historic preservationists, the building is historically significant for its architecture and for its association with important people and events in Pittsburgh’s history.
Ewalt Mansion, March 2020.
Lawrenceville is one of Pittsburgh’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. Change and displacement are happening so quickly in the neighborhood that in 2019 the City of Pittsburgh passed a new inclusive zoning law. The law is an experiment and temporary — it expires 18 months from its enactment — and it only covers large developers building at least 20 rental units. The pilot program’s goal is to preserve affordable housing. Affordable housing advocates hailed the new law, which only applies to Lawrenceville. Continue reading