Urban renewal
Segregation
1960s–1976
City of Atlanta
General area only

West End: renewal, the mall and white flight

The West End Businessmen's Association backed I-20 along the neighborhood's northern edge and an urban renewal project that cleared part of the old business district for a mall completed in 1973. It did not stop white flight: the neighborhood's National Register nomination says West End was 86 percent Black by 1976.

See it on the map All Segregation records

The record

Founded in 1927, the association lobbied in the 1950s and 1960s 'for economic accessibility and population stabilization, including segregation', according to the 1999 National Register nomination for the West End Historic District. With its support Gordon Street (now Ralph David Abernathy Blvd) was widened and I-20 was built across West End's northern fringe. Through the city's West End urban redevelopment project, Georgia R-90, a shopping-center site of just over 14 acres east of the Sears store was sold by January 1968 to A.P.S., Inc., which planned an enclosed mall (Ivan Allen Jr. mayoral records). Portions of the old business district and much housing were demolished; the nomination says the mall was completed in 1973 (some recent accounts give 1972), and a MARTA station later opened across Lee Street. The nomination states that by 1976 West End was 86 percent Black, though it cites no source for the figure.

Today: The 1973 mall and West End MARTA station still anchor the old business district. The neighborhood is again drawing new investment.

Where on the map: Renewal-area boundaries on GSU layers atlpm0154a–atlpm0156f and atlpm0314.