Gareth Fenley: Guide for Lesbians Moving to Atlanta, Georgia, 1995 to 2015

by Gareth Fenley

Yet, Atlanta is kinder and prettier than New York or Chicago. It’s spread out in the middle of what used to be a forest. There are still so many trees that when you fly into Atlanta, looking down, you can be right over some parts of the city and think it’s a park.

A Welcoming Place to Start

I always recommend that lesbians new to Atlanta visit Charis Books and More, phone (404) 524-0304. (1189 Euclid Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30307.) Charis, pronounced KARE-iss, is a 20-year-old, feminist bookstore, owned and staffed by lesbians. The women working there can usually answer all of your questions, and they are very nice. Although their main job is to sell books and trinkets, they are used to being a “tourist information center” for visiting dykes. They are a community networking spot for those who live here year-round. Charis keeps notebooks and a bulletin board with notices of various literary, cultural, and musical events. The store sells tickets to women’s music concerts and happenings. It has also hosted some wonderful benefit performances, workshops, and readings. A regular Thursday night program of readings (open mic) and discussions is popular with book lovers.

Charis Books and More is located in Little Five Points, a neighborhood sometimes called the “Greenwich Village of the South.” Compared to what New York or San Francisco can offer, Atlanta’s center of “alternative culture” is small, modest, and friendly. If you’re from a single-stoplight town, though, Little Five Points might just blow your mind. I’ll have lots more information about it and other neighborhoods later in this guide.

Jobs

The job market in Atlanta is probably one of the best in the nation. The metro area enjoys a diverse economy that doesn’t heavily depend on any single industry. Job listings in the Sunday paper always run on for several pages. That does not mean finding a job is guaranteed or easy in all fields. You are likely to succeed if you are persistent.

A long-established, lesbian networking group of professional here in Atlanta is Fourth Tuesday; their hotline with recorded info is 404-xxx-xxx. You can write to them at PO Box xxxx, Atlanta GA 30309.

You can get to know Atlanta — and scope possible employers — by ordering a copy of the two-volume, Metro Atlanta Yellow Pages. Info on how to order is in your phone book, or try your local library.

Plenty of lesbians move to Atlanta hoping to find a better life, without a job (or school enrollment) already in the bag. The typical plan is to bring along enough money to last while you seek a job. If you really need to find work fast, you should be able to pick one up if you hustle and if you have the basic qualifications for hire as a retail cashier, store clerk, temporary office worker, telemarketer, or similar “McJob.” Metro Atlanta employers are hiring daily on that level. That way, you can get a local reference and a little cash flow while you orient yourself to seek career employment.

The Olympics

Atlanta has won its bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. This huge international event has already deeply affected the city with “Olympic fever.” Sports facilities are being built all around the area. Downtown, there’s already a souvenir shop devoted entirely to the Olympics. New jobs and exciting opportunities are coming. Lots of folks have dollar signs flashing in their eyes. Probably everyone who lives within 50 miles of downtown has toyed with the idea of renting out rooms, the lawn, or even the whole place to visitors.

No doubt many dreams will “go bust” along the way. Some people have already become cynical and convinced that the whole city is going to make a mess of the event. Every time there’s a big traffic jam these days, some Scrooges talk about how the Olympics are going be 1000 times worse by shutting the city down.

I personally recommend that if you like the idea of moving to Atlanta, consider doing it this spring or early this summer. Once we hit July and August 1995, the countdown frenzy will launch into full swing.

Even this soon, housing markets are beginning to show the Olympic effect. A local consumer-advocate reporter says apartment rent hikes of 20% this spring are not unusual, and 10% is common. That’s going to get much worse as the Olympics overtake the city.

Moving here in the first half of 1996 would probably be a colossal hassle. If instead, you move here in the coming months of 1995, you would be in a better position to settle in and be sitting pretty for the Games.

The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, by the way, last year did the right thing for our community. After a sustained, intense campaign by the “Olympics Out of Cobb Coalition,” a volleyball venue was yanked from Cobb County because the county commissioners refused to back down from an antigay resolution.

Bed & Breakfast

Ifyou want referral to a bed and breakfast inn, call Bed and Breakfast Atlanta, (404) xxx-xxxx. There used to be a lesbian-owned B&B, but it has closed. Still, there are several nice B&B’s inside the intown neighborhoods that cater to a gay clientele. Go ahead and openly tell the referral service just what you’re looking for.

Bars

Atlanta has a thriving and ever-changing bar scene. On any given week, between two and three dozen bars will be in business catering to a predominantly gay clientele. But clubs can open and close unpredictably, and their popularity can quickly rise and fall among different types of folks. Right now, I’d say we’re ready for a new women’s bar. If you want a high-energy Saturday night, you have to dance with a mostly male or straight crowd, or luck out with a private party.

The Otherside (xxx-xxxx, 1924 Piedmont Road in Midtown) is a nice welcoming spot where lesbians are generally the majority on any night. The owners bill it as “Atlanta’s Mixed Bar.” There’s a dance floor flanked by two bars in the main room, with pool tables to the side. The Key Club is an adjoining piano bar with sofas and fireplaces, sometimes offering live music. The back patio has been rebuilt as a fully enclosed room and converted to a country-western dance floor, except on Wednesday night, when the whole complex draws an African American clientele and fills to overflowing. This is the night and the place Black dykes are talking about right now. But call first — things change.

Revolution (xxx-xxxx, 293 Pharr Road in Buckhead) was the hottest club in town when it opened two years ago, but the heyday has passed. It’s still worth checking out. Call ahead to find out what you’ll be walking into — they’ve started booking go-go boys in an attempt to draw gay men on some nights. Downstairs there’s a circular dance floor, a bar with pool tables and foosball, and a room (currently closed) that was a country-western bar. Upstairs, there’s a cozy bar with windows and a really great elevated deck.

Atlanta’s oldest lesbian bar, the venerable Tower Lounge, booked Meg Christian when she first toured for Olivia Records in the 1970’s. By the 1990’s it had become what I called in a previous edition of this guide, “a sort of grubby neighborhood hangout.” The Tower closed in 1994 and later re-opened under the name Shahan’s Saloon (xxx-xxxx, 735 Ralph McGill near Little Five Points). There are somewhat more men in the mix now, but still plenty of women. No windows, three pool tables, and heads turn when you walk in the door. If you hail from a small or midsize town, Shahan’s will feel like old times.

Making Friends

There’s much, much, much more to gay life here than the bars. For those from smaller communities, that will be a welcome change. But be aware that the big city comes with a drawback. There are already tens of thousands of lesbians here (hurray!) and you are just one or two more. So, you might have to make a little extra effort to find people you “fit” with. The community is so big that everyone has grouped into sub-groups. I know you will find one or maybe lots that you enjoy.

Visiting Charis is a nice way to start, but there are also plenty of other starting places. Here’s another highly recommended resource: Southern Voice. It’s a top-quality, weekly newspaper for the gay and lesbian community. Lesbians own it! When you are in town, you can get one free at most of the bars, at Charis, and in newspaper boxes on the street in the gay neighborhoods.

Naturally, “SoVo” is also an invaluable source of information and gossip on queer Hotlanta, plus concerts, restaurants, plays, ad identifying gay-friendly businesses, and so on. Subscription highly recommended. It’s $28 a year. Southern Voice PO Box xxxxx Atlanta, Georgia. In this paper, you’ll find a list of a few hundred organizations. Pick out a few that sound interesting and give them a call. Feel free to ask me for suggestions once you arrive.

African American Connections

Atlanta is home to one of the world’s largest Black lesbian communities. One way to get into the middle of things is through Hospitality Atlanta, which sponsors entertainment and social gatherings, sometimes on a grand scale. The grassroots group originally formed to host parties for women of color visiting the 1991 National Lesbian Conference, and the group is still going.

Another strong group is Zami, which tends to be a bit more literary and political, but it also has plenty of fun events such as picnics.

I used to list contact phone numbers for these groups, but they change often, and they are “home” telephone numbers. I am putting this guide into wider distribution this year [1995], and I will err on the side of caution. You can find listings for these and a whole bunch of other groups in the latest issue of Southern Voice, or in a newsletter called Venus that just started publishing. Or call me when you get into town, and I’ll look them up for you.

Or call AALGA, the African American Lesbian/Gay Alliance (voice mail, 404-xxx-xxxx). It’s the main coalition group and is extremely active. Last time I checked, they were holding seven, regular, open meetings every month.

Finding a Place to Live

Okay, now I’ll move into the main part of the guide: how to find a place to live. To get a sense of housing costs in Atlanta, your best bet is to look through the local classified ads. That will let you evaluate the kind of space and living situation you can get for the kind of money you are willing to pay. To spend less, expect the usual sacrifices: a smaller space, less desirable location, etc. If you need to spend a lot less, you should look into a shared-housing or roommate situation.

My apartment might have nothing in common with where you want to live, but I’ll tell you my rent to give you a benchmark. I pay $570 a month, which the landlord says is just slightly below market rate, for a 2-bedroom, second-floor apartment in a moderate-income neighborhood, three miles from downtown and a few blocks away from Charis Books.

Your two best sources of housing ads are the Journal-Constitution, the daily mainstream paper, and get the Sunday edition; and the Creative Loafing, a weekly “alternative” paper. The daily will give comprehensive listings for the entire metro area. “The Loaf” gives the best listings for “intown” neighborhoods like mine, where lesbians and gays are most concentrated.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution              Creative Loafing
72 Marietta Street N W                               PO Box xxxxxx
Atlanta, GA 30303                                      Atlanta, GA 30308

For roommate ads, try Creative Loafing or Southern Voice. Charis Books has a women’s housing notebook, where lesbians can leave ads for roommates or rentals. Gay and gay-friendly religious congregations listed in Southern Voice also are good places for bulletin-board ads and for friendly referrals if you need really low-cost, bottom-dollar housing.

To search for housing in Atlanta, you will need to know something about the neighborhoods. One of the main characteristics of any neighborhood in metro Atlanta, yet one of the least openly discussed in materials you can find, is the race of people who live there. Most areas are overwhelmingly either white or Black. Some are mixed. I’m most familiar with the mixed, “intown” neighborhoods, which are the queerest ones.

Atlanta Boundaries, Highways, and Traffic

Basically, you can divide metro Atlanta into inside the perimeter (urban) and outside the perimeter (suburban). Interstate 285, the highway that makes a ring around Atlanta, is called “the perimeter.”

Trivia fact: An Atlanta Braves baseball player was once late for a game because being new to town, he kept driving endlessly around the perimeter. Moral: You can very easily get lost on the perimeter. The signs are really confusing.

The northern crescent of 1-285 between 1-75 and 1-85 is a traffic and construction nightmare. If you are from Los Angeles, you’ll think it’s nothing at all.

Here are a couple of other terms you’re sure to hear whenever you turn on a radio at rush hour. “Spaghetti junction” is the huge and bizarre intersection of 1-85 and I-285 north of Atlanta. “The Connector” is the part of 1-75 and 1-85 that are merged together, going north and south through downtown. There now, you can impress people with your local knowledge.

Atlanta has a great but limited rapid-rail system, called the MARTA [Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority] train. It’s the fastest way to get between the airport and downtown. The city of Atlanta as well as Fulton, DeKalb, and Cobb counties are served by buses that connect to the train. Gwinnett county has no public transportation—none. (Don’t get me started on that one.)

Trivia fact: The state of Georgia has more counties than any other state of the union. Hey, Georgia’s not all that big. Moral: Counties tend to be very small here, and when you ask a lot of people where they live, they will name the county instead of a city or town. Similarly, county names are often used in real estate listings.

By the way, if you live anywhere near Atlanta, you can say, “I live in Atlanta.” If you actually live inside the city limits, you can explain, “I live in the city of Atlanta.” Property taxes are high in the city of Atlanta (and in DeKalb County). On the up side, the Atlanta city council has made some gay-friendly moves, including adoption of domestic partner registry, and passing an ordinance that bans anti-gay discrimination by the city or by any city contractor.

Tour of Neighborhoods

Now, grab a map and follow along for a tour. We will start from the northern suburbs and move southward.

Eventually, you want a map that lists neighborhood names and shows the MARTA train lines. Be sure to get one when you visit Atlanta. Check any gas station.

Suburbia

To the north of the perimeter are flourishing suburbs. Lots of lesbians live up there, sprinkled into communities with very straight reputations. The Cobb County Commission, for example, declared in 1993 that homosexuality is incompatible with the values of the county, making national news. Cobb County is also the home turf of the now-infamous Newt “get thee to an orphanage” Gingrich.

Suburbia is not all white. Some parts of it are. And there are also suburban, Black neighborhoods and mixed areas. One of the best parties I ever attended in my life was hosted by a Black lesbian and Puerto Rican lesbian couple in Gwinnett County.

Lesbians and gays who consider suburbia an ideal place to live tend to be closeted or “discreet.” The first gay bar ever in suburban Atlanta was raided by police immediately after it opened in 1994. And rainbow flags are generally not displayed on suburban cars for safety reasons.

But there are out-proud folks even in suburbia. WINK (short for “Women in Kahoots”) is based in Marietta, in the heart of notorious Cobb County. WINK’s founder and sustainer, Lxxxx Pxxxxxx, is a wonderful and energetic lesbian Welcome Wagon. She hosts fabulous parties and knows her way around up there. Contact WINK at (404) xxx-xxxx.

Suburban homes can be handy to work and shopping areas — office parks and malls are booming everywhere. Houses and even apartments can be more affordable than in the heart of the city. Some of the public schools tend to be better. And the common perception is that there’s less crime although neighborhood safety varies wildly throughout the vast reaches of suburbia.

Some of the better-known suburban areas are:

To the northwest: Smyrna, Marietta, Cobb County

Directly north: Sandy Springs, North Fulton, Roswell, Dunwoody

Northeast: Gwinnett County, Norcross

East: Clarkston, Tucker, Stone Mountain. (Note — On the map, Stone Mountain is a tiny village, but its post office serves a huge area going all the way to 1-285 south of Clarkston, including rich and poor, Black and white neighborhoods. A “Stone Mountain” classified listing could be any of these.)

West: Six Flags area.

Closer in

Now let’s cross to inside the perimeter. (Ah, I feel better already.) The northern metro area still has the suburban flavor but tends to feel more city-like, with much more ethnic mixing, including immigrants from around the world. In the northeast, you will find amazing Asian and Hispanic markets and restaurants with menus you can’t read. Some of the neighborhoods are: Chamblee, Doraville, Brookhaven, and Buckhead.

“Buckhead,” properly speaking, is a small crossroads of millionaire mansions and upscale nightlife. Saying “I live in Buckhead” is so trendy that real estate agents are using the generic name for anywhere in the huge area between 1-75 and 1-85. You will pay extra high prices to live really, truly in Buckhead.

Decatur area

To the east of Atlanta, inside the perimeter, is Decatur. It was once a small town (it’s older than Atlanta). It has its own police force; an old-fashioned courthouse square; and some remaining small-town feeling. Decatur has its own very good school system with a single high school — a unique holdout in the metro area, where other school districts have been consolidated on a county basis.

A large area claims the name Decatur, far outside the actual city limits. Decatur and its neighbor Avondale Estates have some racially mixed neighborhoods, as well as some that are distinctly white or Black.

Historically, Decatur, but never Atlanta, jailed Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil disobedience. Today, the current leadership in Decatur is progressive. In 1993, the mayor specifically welcomed lesbians and gays, inviting them to move to his city from Cobb County.

Lately, Decatur’s gay population has boomed. One of my favorite groups to watch out for at Pride parades is the toy lawn-mower drill team from the garden club, “Digging Dykes of Decatur.”

Central City Neighborhoods — Intown

The bullseye of Atlanta is called Downtown. Nobody lives there. The urban, residential and business area surrounding the core is broadly called “intown.”For intown housing, you will find the best source of classified ads is Creative Loafing. Crime is generally considered to be worse here than in the suburbs, although quite frankly, crime is bad in all of metro Atlanta.

West End, a historic, intown, Black neighborhood on the southwest side, has the African American community’s most vibrant alternative-culture area, with the Shrine of the Black Madonna, the First World Bookstore, lots of vegetarian restaurants, and a co-op grocery. The Atlanta University campus has some of the country’s premier, historic, Black colleges nearby.

Northeast intown

Northeast intown encompasses the liveliest gay neighborhoods. This is where you can pick up Southern Voice on many street corners, and where all the gay bars and openly gay retail businesses are.

Moving outward from downtown, some of the neighborhoods are:

Midtown

Midtown is closest to downtown. It’s west and south of glorious Piedmont Park, Atlanta’s answer to New York’s Central Park. Midtown offers center-city living, as urban as you can get. High-rise condos and low-rise, sometimes trashed-out older apartment buildings and houses for rent. Heavily gay male. Racially mixed. High crime.

Ansley, Morningside, Virginia Highlands

Trendy, expensive neighborhoods with some slightly cheaper apartments sprinkled in. Very popular with gays and lesbians. Most real estate is owned by whites, but in areas with renters, there is racial mixing. A reputation for having the lowest crime among intown areas.

Lenox, Briarcliff, Clairmont, LaVista, Lindbergh, and Cheshire Bridge

You will see these headings on many promising classified ads. These are the names of major streets that run through northeast, intown, residential neighborhoods. “Emory/CDC” is a similar monicker (referring to Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control). Huge numbers of apartment complexes are clustered along the biggest streets, and you can find one to suit your taste and price range. You will probably have to visit in person to have any idea what it is like. You’ll also find rental houses and apartments that are in quiet residential areas off the big streets, listed under their names in the classified ads, such as “Briarcliff/LaVista area.”

South of Ponce de Leon Avenue

Ponce de Leon Avenue is a good reference point to learn. It rambles east-west, from downtown Atlanta to downtown Decatur. Many streets change names when they cross “Ponce;” for example, Briarcliff becomes Moreland.

South of Ponce, another landmark connects the two downtowns — an old but still active railroad line. It runs along DeKalb Avenue (like the county, pronounced: Dee-KAB) and the east-west line of the rapid-rail system, MARTA. It seems like most cities have railroad tracks forming a racial boundary, and here are those tracks in metro Atlanta.

Between Ponce, DeKalb Avenue, and Little Five Points

This is a pretty amazing slice of multiracial, urban life. You’ll want to visit even if it’s not where you decide to live. Lesbians and ex-hippies have transformed certain neighborhoods by buying up what sometimes seems like most of the property. To me, it’s home. But beware – the area has a reputation for frequent thefts and occasionally, violent crime, including muggings, murders, and rapes, supposedly due to “weirdos” attracted to Little Five Points. Some people have moved out, or considered moving, for this reason.

Neighborhoods Near Little Five Points include:

Little Five Points (L5P)

At the intersection of Moreland, McLendon, and Euclid, this is the alternative culture mecca of the South. Spike-haired punks and skinheads mingle with motorcycle club members, Rastafarians, Deadheads, vegans, tourists, and lesbians of every description. You never know when the Indigo Girls may show up unannounced at a street festival in their old hangout.

Inman Park

Atlanta’s original suburb, located at what was once the end of a streetcar line, and now swallowed by the city. Rich people built gorgeous homes here and commuted to downtown. The glory fell on hard times, and many mansions were trashed. In the 1970s, Inman Park led the city in urban renovation and gentrification. Our mayor, Bill Campbell, lives there now.

Candler Park and Lake Claire

Lesbian potluck city. Where I live now. These neighborhoods of brick and wood bungalows, multiracial today, were originally the white working-class answer to Inman Park.

Poncey Highland

Home of Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Center. The surrounding neighborhood is economically on the edge; but we might see it reviving with renovation now that major road construction has ended in the area.

Cabbagetown

Just south of DeKalb Avnue, Cabbagetown is an old-time, white, working-class enclave, a former mill town, now becoming diversified by Black and gay immigrants. My sister just bought a little, old, one-bedroom shotgun house there, by the way.

Southeast intown

Southeast intown Atlanta (within a few miles south of 1-20, and within the Atlanta city limits) is today’s renovation frontier. During the 1960s whites completely fled most areas south of the tracks, but in a few neighborhoods some white homeowners stayed on as minorities alongside the new, Black homeowners and renters. In the 1980s and ’90s, new “urban pioneers,” mostly white, often gays or lesbians, are buying houses and restoring them or just living there.

The renovation leader is Grant Park, where you’ll see legions of rainbow flags, and some temptingly priced rentals and shared-housing opportunities. Some “up and coming” areas are Ormewood Park, Brownwood Park, Kirkwood, East Lake, and East Atlanta, where I lived for 3 years. Burglary is common in these neighborhoods, as is drug use — but no senseless, violent “street slaughter” as depicted by TV news. In the streets, children play ball, and people carry groceries from the bus stop to their homes.

Southside

Starting more or less south of 1-20, the Southside reaches down to the Perimeter. Lots of lesbians live down there; but, as in suburbia, the prevailing lifestyle is closeted and discreet. Unlike suburbia, the southside is overwhelmingly Black. Most of the neighborhoods are severely impoverished, and there are numerous public housing projects and some very dangerous areas. But there are also nicer areas, even a few developments aimed at middle-class, African Americans looking for reasonably priced new homes.

The southeast side, south of Decatur, is usually called South DeKalb. The nicer neighborhoods to the southwest, in Fulton County, include East Point and College Park.The airport and its satellite hotels and convention centers are located at the southernmost point of the Perimeter. There aren’t many other major employers on the Southside, and commercial development is severely limited there.

South Suburbia

South of the southside, outside the perimeter, the racial balance flips back again to majority white. The southern suburbs are nowhere near as booming as the northern ones. This area feels more like the South than the city. Near the highways, there’s commercial development. Off the highways there are small towns. Keep going a while, and you’ll get to Atlanta Speedway.

A Note about Crime

Yes, this is a dangerous city. When choosing any place to live in metro Atlanta, you should definitely check it out thoroughly. Walk around the building and the neighborhood; and trust your instincts as to whether you feel safe. A house may be broken into if there are regular times when nobody’s home (unless the homeowner hires a security company, which is fairly common everywhere in the metro area). A well-managed apartment complex or a roommate situation may offer more security for a single woman. I have one of the best, most security-minded — and of course, not the cheapest — major, intown landlords of renovated old apartments: Braden-Fellman, (404) xxx-xxxx.

Don’t get totally freaked about crime, though. The house where I lived in East Atlanta, a high-burglary area, has never had a burglar in the 12 years that my housemates have lived there. I and my parents, sisters, and brothers have lived in Atlanta in apartments and houses from Midtown to Morningside, Briarcliff, Virginia Highland, Decatur, Stone Mountain, and Candler Park, and none of us have ever been the victim of any crime that I can remember.

Favorite Places

I’ll end this edition of “Moving to Atlanta” with a list of favorite places to visit. I hope you will have a chance to check them out yourself.

– Flying Biscuit Cafe in Candler Park to eat organic salad and look for butches
– DeKalb Farmers Market (World Market) for cashiers who speak 4 languages
– The Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for contemplation
– Underground Atlanta and the Coca-Cola Museum next door, just for fun
– CNN Center for studio tours and the TalkBack Live audience
– Piedmont Park to see roller-bladers, poodles, girl jocks, and Pride in June
– Zoo Atlanta in Grant Park to watch the gorilla and orangutan babies play  
– Lenox Mall for the complete consumer experience
– Tortilla’s on Ponce and Fellini’s Pizza in Little 5 Points for urban grunge
– Driving up Peachtree Street to Buckhead at night looking at skyscrapers

Good luck and happy seasons!

~Gareth Fenley

See Also:

Gareth Fenley