The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 19 (2008)

Manufacturing Segregation:
The Birth and Death of Underground Atlanta,
1969−1981

Ichiro MIYATA*I.

INTRODUCTION

In 1969, a $10-million project restored 280,000 square feet of decayed
downtown area in central Atlanta, creating a time capsule that would recapture the mood of gas-lit, turn-of-the-century Atlanta. A section of the central
business district that had been sealed over by a viaduct more than 30 years
before was thereby turned into a festive place. The Cleveland Plain Dealer
reported that the four-block enclave was “new, rising like Lazarus from thedead [to become] an area of enchantment.”1 Lazarus, or Underground Atlanta(hereafter UA), was designed and promoted as the perfect tourist and entertainment destination. The cobblestone streets and courtyards contained restaurants, lounges, boutiques, shops and historical attractions. During the day,children watched monkeys do tricks and swarmed around the ice cream parlor, while guides dressed in antebellum costume pleased history buffs. Aftersunset, upscale cabarets and nightclubs entertained downtown businessmen
and women, and (mostly male) conventioneers. The warm glow of gaslightmust have enabled the visitors to imagine Main Street in the “good old days.”UA, however, did not turn out to be Lazarus, and its resurrection came to an
end by 1981. In the words of historian David Goldfield, the project to create
Copyright © 2008 Ichiro Miyata. All rights reserved. This work may be used, withthis notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be
distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission fromthe author.
*Assistant Professor, Saitama University

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a downtown festive place did little more than “transform an old deterioratingarea into a new deteriorating area.”2 UA’s brief life represents another story of
the failure to breathe new life into a downtown area. There are many reasonsfor the death of UA: security concerns, rival suburban entertainment, suburbanites’ fear of downtown crime such as mugging and vandalism, and theclosure of popular businesses as a result of the construction of Metropolitan
Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)’s downtown Five Points station.
Because of the laissez-faire approach of its planners and managers, UA was
unable to survive these challenges.3
This paper examines the birth and death of UA within a context of postwar urban transformation characterized by suburbanization and urban decline, writing its “biography” in relation to the post-war transformation ofurban landscapes. Post-war affluence was visible in the rapidly growing suburbs, wherein sprang up shiny office buildings, gigantic shopping malls anddetached homes with large backyards. While prosperous whites left cities forthese crabgrass frontiers, the impoverished city dwellers, mostly racial andethnic minorities, could not follow them due to financial expense, discriminatory mortgage lending and land use regulations such as restricted covenants.
The Civil Rights Movement did not enable racial minorities to move to affluent suburban communities. Moreover, desegregation accelerated “whiteflight” to the urban fringes. Declining tax revenues meant that cities could nolonger provide their citizens with sufficient public services. The absence ofgood public schools, public housing, public transportation and job opportunities resulted in deteriorating living conditions for the underprivileged. The
decline of the city thus became obvious in the increase of homelessness,boarded-up grocery stores, and the growth of crime rates.4 Atlanta was no
exception. Massive suburbanization in “the Capitol of New South” during thesixties and seventies resulted in many whites leaving for newly built suburban subdivisions, while the black urban population rose rapidly, reachingapproximately seventy percent by the end of the seventies.5 Despite the increasing numbers of affluent African Americans, “Central City Atlanta became increasingly black and poor.”6
Many individuals tried to grapple with and reverse the deterioration of
downtown Atlanta, and UA was one of their attempts to revive Main Street.
Real estate developers, bankers, department store owners, and city officials
wanted the thriving downtown back. Capitalizing on white suburbanites’
nostalgia, the promoters tried to create a space in which middle-class whites
could return and stay. The planners and developers claimed those who left thecity did not want to completely desert the Main Street they had once strolled

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and cherished. The rise of tourism during the 1970s and 1980s enabled business persons and city officials to pursue the return of white middle-classsuburbanites to the center of the city; historic preservation in particular
played a major role in this as urban renewal and gentrification programs revitalized the historical landscape, refurbishing run-down, dust-covered old
buildings and transforming them into historic structures.7 This paper explains
how these developers, city officials, and promoters created this space andhow their efforts met with both temporary success and eventual failure.
Although using a “living organism” metaphor (i.e., “birth,” “death,” and“life”), this paper does not try to convince readers to view UA as going
through “a process whose trajectory has been out of the control of humanhands.”8 In the United States, the lamentation of downtown’s “decline” appears so frequently in newspapers, television reports, business magazines,
and even history accounts that people tend to understand it as a universal andmaybe an ahistorical process. Applying a “free-market” model (i.e., “rise andfall”) to interpret the cause of downtown’s decline also assumes that market
conditions determine a city’s fate, ignoring the role of human actors in urban
decay. However, UA’s death epitomizes neither a “decline” nor a “climax”
that all downtowns will universally or automatically experience. Rather, itspassing was the inevitable result of a change that Atlanta had undergone after
the Civil Rights Movement. In other words, this paper tries to show how different actors clashed over the fate of Main Street, who came to dominate thesite, and how suburbanization and the city’s impoverishment affected thetransformation of these power relationships.
By investigating its rise and fall, this paper argues that UA was destined to
fail because of its endeavor to fulfill two conflicting desires, although both
stemmed from a common objective—to recreate downtown in its “good olddays.” One desire was to revive the “lively” downtown of the past, which required not only restoring historic structures but also making the space open
in order to contain a variety of businesses and visitors. Unlike Disneyland or
Sea World, with their gates and fences, its openness could work for an idealof public space that geographer Don Mitchell seeks, in which the spaceshould work as “a site of interaction, encounter and the support of strangers
for each other” and as “a communicator of information and interchange.”9
However, another desire collided with this pursuit of openness, which was toreturn downtown to the white middle class. It was this collision between inclusion and exclusion that determined UA’s fate. By investigating newspaper
accounts, UA pamphlets, downtown business organization reports, and television shows, this paper reveals how these two desires clashed and led to242

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UA’s early death. First, I will demonstrate how UA was successful in recreating a vibrant Main Street and how its “inclusiveness” was admired as themark of a good revitalization project. Then, I will uncover how the reputationof UA declined because of the appearance of “undesirable” elements andhow this brought about the erection of iron gates and fences, thereby enclosing the property, killing downtown inclusiveness, and eventually terminating
the life of UA.
II.

“GENTLE AWAKENING OF THE HISTORIC SPA”10

The history of UA began with the discovery of a treasure, the dark, subterranean area of downtown. A series of city-sponsored development projects inthe early twentieth century, in an effort to relieve traffic congestion and reduce accidents, had built viaducts and bridges over downtown’s Central,
Pryor, Peachtree, Broad and Forsyth Streets. While downtown businessmen
built new streets on the bridges and viaducts, which became a major segmentof downtown Atlanta, underneath remained the “old buildings of a former
day, in their original turn-of-the-century styles.”11 Sealed by the viaduct, thesite was completely deserted, becoming a “sheltered place for bums . . . ,derelicts and broken men” and the “city’s trashiest spot.”12 When Atlanta’s
City Design Commission (CDC) rediscovered the place in 1966, however, it
was looked upon as an island of treasure. The viaduct had frozen a landscapeof buildings dating from the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. The area also contained the Zero Mile Post, which marked the birthplace of Marthasville (theoriginal name of Atlanta) as a railroad station.13 The CDC could not overlook
such a golden opportunity for restoration, pointing out that “nothing else
physically remains of Atlanta’s history.”14 According to the preservationists,
the dark, dusty space under the viaduct would provide “an area rich in historical significance [in] contrast to the high-rise modern building.” Historicalsignificance, however, was not the only selling point; it was believed that
restoration would turn the downtown wasteland into “a gold mine,” a major
tourist attraction that would generate “a sound margin of profit.”15
The idea of UA grew out of the CDC’s vision.16 In 1968, two Georgia Institute of Technology alumni established a development and managementcompany called Underground Atlanta, Inc. (UAI), which purchased and refurbished the subterranean area as a historic park and leased space to individual businesses.17 The corporation also managed the security and cleaningof the area and provided various forms of entertainment. The support of theCity of Atlanta, the Chamber of Commerce, and the State of Georgia’s Tour-MANUFACTURING SEGREGATION

Fig. 1

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Postcard of Underground Atlanta Incorporation.

ism Committee enabled the young company to borrow $4 million to purchase
the area and create a historic and festive place (Fig. 1).18 The objective in
implementing the plan was to sanitize the area, and “sandblasting” in 1968
marked the beginning of Underground Atlanta’s construction.19 The CDC
had already proposed to clean up the site and bring in desirable tenants. To
make downtown commercially feasible, CDC planners also proposed to provide “needed controls over [the] character of [UA’s] development,” an approach that included removing homeless people.20 In other words, their attempt to purify the site was not only physical but cultural. This was also
evident in the UAI’s historical exhibition, the theme of which centered on the
Civil War and the city’s recovery from Sherman’s destruction but did not include the experiences of African Americans, who comprised more than half
the city’s population in 1970. According to anthropologist Charles Rutheiser,
the UAI presented only a “highly sanitized representation of Atlanta’s past,”
especially as it regarded race.21
In addition to sanitizing history, the UAI dramatized and molded the themeof UA to make the center of the city a place for middle-class families, whowere to be the area’s major constituents. When the UAI attempted to establish a “historic adventure,” they well understood what middle-class families

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wanted in a downtown public space.22 Consequently, they tried to turn theproperty into a theater in which visitors could experience the aura of a nineteenth-century Atlanta street by strolling among classic buildings and newly
installed gaslights, and being served dinner by waitresses in antebellum
dress. The exhibition of an old streetcar dramatized Atlanta’s origin as a train
station. Visitors would be able to sense Atlanta’s past through such “longforgotten smells” as “the aroma of fresh bread baked in a 60-year-old gasoven” and via the sounds of old wooden flute replicas played by children in
the alley.23 UA even had a printing shop which published the Atlanta Phoenix, “Georgia’s Newest Old News Paper.” Advertisements and historical information helped visitors “reorient themselves to the past,” while the smell of
ink and the feel of old, brown paper added to the experience.24
This theatrical, family-oriented atmosphere reflected UAI officials’ strategy to attract the suburban middle class, who secluded themselves in singlefamily detached houses. Postwar amusement had a good command of it; according to Susan Davis, for instance, “family entertainment” was a major
attraction of the postwar theme park, entertainment that was “not just entertainment that can be enjoyed across generational boundaries, but the assertion of parental control . . . , entertainment for children and youth under thesupervision of parents.”25 Historic adventure was one such form of family
entertainment, and one which provided parents with a controlled opportunity
to teach their children about the city’s history. Perhaps more important, thebread, the flutes, the Confederate flag stamps, and the newspapers were consumable commodities the purchase of which helped parents to demonstrate
their authority to their children. UA, then, was an attempt to suburbanize
downtown for white middle-class families.
However, UAI officials envisioned a different face for UA at night. As aplace for downtown festivities, it needed to fulfill the demands of those visiting the central business districts on business (especially male conventioneers)and of party-craving students from Georgia State College. UAI officials,
aware of both the need and the opportunity, did not want UA to be only ahistoric district, which entailed rigid regulations in the look of its buildings
and nature of its businesses. Indeed, they stated a preference for an upscalenightclub over “an antique doll shop…, which at the onset won’t be profitable.”26 Therefore, the business establishments in the area were diverse, including everything from a banjo bar, an ice-cream parlor and a jazz lounge toa cabaret theatre. At the same time, nightclubs had to abide by the UAI’s rules
to maintain overall respectability and to guarantee the “safety and cleanliness” of the area, exemplifying an attempt to strike a balance between night-

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life and family entertainment. Likewise, security guards in Victorian costume
were on duty around the clock, as promoters emphasized that UA was notgoing to be “a Gaslight Square [St. Louis], an Old Town [Chicago], or a
French Quarter [New Orleans],” all of which were historic districts famous
for their adult entertainment. They also promised that they would not welcome “the hippie crowd,” which was often regarded in the late 1960s as asource of disorder.27
Nevertheless, the merger of family entertainment and nightlife produced aspace that was less controllable than Disneyland or Sea World because UA
did not have a physical boundary in the form of a gate and walls. Despite its
appeal to the suburban middle class, UA’s lack of an admission fee allowedanyone to hang out in the area. Ironically, it was this very inclusiveness thatthe newspapers of other cities admired. The Memphis Commercial Appeal,for example, wrote that UA was “very different and exciting,” since “everybody goes there, the young and old alike, in evening gowns, in hippy dress.”28
The Cleveland Plain Dealer observed that “while UA was a magnet foryoung swingers—it’s also great for children and for older folks.”29 A tourists’guide book introduced the site by advising readers that “there are plenty ofplaces to suit everyone, so don’t hesitate to bring the kids, the clergy, or the
grandparents.”30
III.

THE “BELLY DANCER IN A HOOPSKIRT?”31

By 1972, UA had reached “its glorious zenith.”32 Amiable crowds—teenagers enjoying ice cream, old couples dancing to banjo music, and children
cheering the performance of a clown—filled the subterranean area every
weekend. The number of business establishments exceeded eighty, which
was twice as many as there had been in 1970, and more than 4.5 million
people visited the area.33 In the same year, the Society of American Travel
Writers awarded UA for “outstanding contributions to a quality travel environment through conservation and preservation.”34 Its reputation as a “family
place” persisted. In 1973, the New York Times applauded UA’s effort to contain bars and “family fluffs” together safely, offering a “downtown alternative
to the topless joints and X-rated movie houses.”35 Nevertheless, UA was on
the verge of collapse, largely because the balance between family and otherforms of entertainment was more fragile than it appeared.
In 1972, a nightclub named New Year’s Eve located close to—but not
in—UA, began to feature “go-go girls.” Because the club was not on theirproperty, the UAI could not regulate the show, but this did not prevent it from246

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disrupting UA’s image of middle-class respectability. The City of Atlanta,
especially Vice Mayor Maynard Jackson, who later became the city’s first
African American mayor, loudly denounced the “girlie show” that was so
close to UA, “a place where a man can take his wife and children for entertainment without running the risk of encountering lascivious entertainers.”
The owner of the New Year’s Eve club stressed that the dancers were “notstrippers” and were “going to be clothed.” They were, he explained, just
“waitresses who dance in high-neck evening gowns and a hot pants suit.”36
Furthermore, the owner believed that girlie shows were “the most asked-for
thing down here” and that the show would “draw people to UA.”37 In an effort
to stop the performances, Vice Mayor Jackson and UAI officials discoveredthat the club did not have a required city permit for entertainment and, claiming that “families and girlie shows do not mix,” urged the City of Atlanta’s
Aldermanic Committee to deny the New Year’s Eve such a permit.38 Despite
their efforts, however, the committee granted the go-go bar’s request based
upon the promise of the club’s attorney that they would not have “stripteasedancing” and that the women would be attired in “appropriate clothes.” 39 On
May 15, 1972, the City of Atlanta issued the permit.40
In fact, the New Year’s Eve had many influential advocates in Atlanta
politics, including Mayor Sam Massell, whose brother was a close friend of
the owner. The mayor argued that UA was not Six Flags Over Georgia andthat the controversy was like trying to “make some mountains out of somemolehills.”41 As a result, the UAI could not stop the collapse of the familyoriented setting that the middle class favored for UA. During this invasion of
adult entertainment, some joked that UA’s major attraction was “antebellum
belly dancers”; whereas people had once viewed the area as a place to learn
Atlanta’s history with children, they increasingly began to see it as a place fornightlife entertainment. The Atlanta Constitution’s editorial cartoonist Clifford Baldowski captured this changing perception in a drawing of a family
throwing an anxious look at a member of Atlanta’s aldermanic board, who
was striking a pose with a performer from the “girlie shows” (Fig. 2). In
1977, an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution insisted on dumping X-rated
businesses into UA because “a marriage” between UA and the adult industry“might solve two problems [by keeping] UA viable and [getting] the sex
business off the main thoroughfares.”42 This shift symbolized UA’s inability
to maintain its reputation as a family place.
In addition to the deterioration of its family-oriented environment, UA wasalso losing its claim to historical authenticity, which actually was the major
ingredient of the tourist enclave’s appeal to the middle class. In 1973, MAR-MANUFACTURING SEGREGATION

247

Fig. 2 Atlanta Constitution, May 14, 1972, Clifford H. “Baldy” Baldowski Editorial
Cartoons. Courtesy of the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies,
The University of Georgia Libraries.

TA announced a construction plan for its railway system that bore serious
consequences for the future of UA. In order to build the east-west line and thecentral Five Points Station, MARTA was going to bulldoze a third of UAI’s
property, an area that contained fifteen establishments, including popular
clubs, bars, and eateries. For UA, the impending demise of these businesses
was critical, but the real mortal damage would be to the Underground’s reputation as a historic festive place. Under the National Environment Policy Act
of 1969, as the recipient of a federal grant, MARTA had to conduct an environmental impact study to “evaluate the effects the bus and rail rapid transit
system will have on the environment,” including the impact on Atlanta’s historic sites.43 MARTA’s final report revealed that the building of the MARTA
station would have only “relatively minor impact on existing historical sites,”
stating that downtown Atlanta contained only “few historical structures remaining” due to “Sherman’s capture of the City” and “indiscriminate re-248

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moval during major highway construction and urban renewal programs.” UA
was no exception to this judgment, as the report emphasized that “the Five
Point Station will take out some old commercial structures, but none of prime
historical importance [italics mine].” With this statement MARTA largely
minimized UA’s value as a site for history buffs. Indeed, according to the
document, the construction would need only a “temporary relocation of Zero
Mile Post,” which commemorated the birth of the City of Atlanta as a railway
station, and that was it.44
IV.

MANUFACTURING SEGREGATION

After losing its middle-class appeal, UA encountered further financial obstacles and, by the mid-1970s, could no longer conceal its dire financial
straits. The Atlanta Journal had already reported in 1972 the rumor that someshops and nightclubs in UA were “in trouble,” but the UAI had responded
quickly that business volume was still better than other cities’ tourist enclaves, like Larimer Square in Denver and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.”45 By the mid-seventies, however, it was obvious that UA needed help.
The Atlanta Journal reported that the area was becoming a “honky-tonk tourist trap,” and the UAI disclosed that the company had failed to rent many of
the spaces on the property and had an increasing number of unpaid debts.46
Financially devastated, the company solicited compensation from MARTA.
Because some restaurants and bars decided to leave UA, partly because theconstruction plan had shown that they would have to leave eventually anyway, the developers insisted that MARTA take responsibility for UA’s financial hardships and provide compensation prior to beginning its construction.
Not surprisingly, MARTA declined the UAI’s request.47 The UAI then submitted a proposal to the City of Atlanta to turn UA into a “public park,” adesignation that would allow the UAI to build a fence around the area andcharge an entrance fee to visitors.48 Maynard Jackson, by then the city’s
mayor, agreed with the UAI and responded quickly by establishing an ordinance to create “an Underground Historic Park” to enable UAI to charge admission.”49 Advocates of the ordinance argued that, while the fencing was toenable collection of the admission fee, it would also make it possible for UA
to attract middle-class visitors again, thereby bringing “Underground Atlanta
back to Atlanta.”50 However, the “public park” proposal also encounteredsome opposition. For instance, one councilman disapproved of the proposal,
reiterating MARTA’s argument that UA did not contain anything historicallyauthentic other than “a few gas lamps” and was “the honkiest, tonkiest-look-

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ing place I have ever seen.” He argued further that establishing a “historicalzoning code” would be more effective because it would eliminate a “shooting
gallery” and undesirable “storefront signs,” and help the place develop more
historical features.51 The restoration of historical assets, rather than a fence
and a gate, he claimed, would bring middle-class visitors back.
Nonetheless, the fencing advocates had a compelling case, contending thatthe best way to restore the space was to exclude “undesirable elements,” particularly homeless people, who were thought not to fit to UA’s middle-classenvironment. Many, including UAI officials, believed that UA’s lack of asense of security was contributing to its decline and that a fence would help
ameliorate this concern for it would keep out those likely to disturb “public
safety.” A nightclub owner who favored the ordinance contended that fencing
should work because it would “screen out the small number of undesirables.”A fence and gate would quell safety concerns because people know that“nobody’s going to commit a crime when they have to pass through a turnstile on the way out.”52
On March 17, 1975, the city council approved the fencing ordinance,
which enabled the UAI to use the City of Atlanta’s budget to build a physicalboundary around the property. However, legal complexities delayed construction as some tenants opposed the fencing because it would divert thepedestrian traffic that normally passed by their businesses. The city also haddifficulties finding a construction company that satisfied its bid standards forminority employment and price. By the time construction finally began in
1977, the UAI was almost gone, with potentially mortal consequences forUA.53 That year a flamboyant, two-page advertisement of the company disappeared from the City Directory, the company failed to provide garbage collection or security services to the area, and, in 1978, the UAI declared bankruptcy.54 Without the management company, vendors dealing in cheap
t-shirts, cheesy novelty goods, and low-quality paintings filled the alleys ofthe subterranean area. UA was becoming a “dive.”55
V.

THE “DOWNTOWN FIGHTER” AND THE DEMISE OF THE “PUBLIC” PARK

By the time construction of the fence was finished, the Underground Atlanta Merchants Association (UAMA), an organization for business owners
in UA, had replaced the UAI as managers of the property.56 Dante Stevenson,
the UAMA president and the owner of Dante’s Down the Hatch, a popularnightclub and fondue restaurant, became a de facto leader of UA. To provide
security and maintenance services, Stevenson collected fees from bars and250

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restaurants on the property. His opinions appeared frequently in newspaper
articles and were aired on local television programs. “The people in the Underground Office,” Stevenson argued, “once they got into hot water, didn’tknow what to do,” but he differed in that he had a “fighting spirit.”57 As if todemonstrate this spirit, he began to collect a 25-cent admission fee even before the completion of the fence; even though the City of Atlanta had not
authorized UAMA to collect the fee, Stevenson just ignored the city.58 His
fearless attitude as a “downtown fighter” made Atlantans believe that “thehordes once again will return to Underground Atlanta.”59 Stevenson was an
ardent supporter of the fencing project, believing strongly in its ability toprevent “undesirables” from coming in. The fee also required all visitors topass through a gate, where the gatekeepers stared “the grunge element”
down, often telling them, “You don’t belong here.”60 At the same time, Stevenson emphasized the safety of UA, pointing out that the area had “the lowest crime rate in the city since 1973” and that it was “safer than any college
campus, any shopping mall, any neighborhood in metro Atlanta.” One conventioneer commented that she was surprised that UA was not “dirtier andscarier,” and even the Atlanta Police Department admitted that “there was nota significant crime problem” in the area.61
Indeed, Stevenson understood that the real problem was suburbanites’ fearof downtown crime, particularly muggings and vandalism, and the primary
goal of manufacturing segregation was to convince suburbanites that UA
would provide a sanctuary for them downtown. On a sunny day in September
1978, Stevenson and Maynard Jackson celebrated the one-year anniversaryof the fencing project, the first official celebration for the rebirth of UA as a“public park.” While the city of Atlanta could not announce and celebrate thecompletion of the fence and gate the year before, when UAMA started to collect admission fees without the city’s permission, there was another reason tocelebrate: With the entrance fee and financial help from an Oklahoma investment firm, UA had already begun showing signs of revival.62 The income
sources enabled UAMA to deploy “stewardesses selling balloons, a band anda popcorn vender in the streets,” all of which contributed to a feeling of security.63 When Jackson and Stevenson appeared on the podium surrounded bycolorful balloons and microphones, the audience—blacks and whites, men
and women, businesspeople with ties and suits and children with ice cream
and candy—welcomed them, clapping and cheering. After the mayor’s
speech assured them that “Underground Atlanta’s one of the safest spots inthe entire five-county tier,” the “downtown fighter,” Stevenson, stood up andsaid:

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Six Flags is fenced. Disney World is fenced. Stone Mountain is fenced. People
feel safer inside a fence. . . . We can’t find religious fanatics now to come in here
and debate with us, whereas before it used to be a problem. The problem of thewinos and the beggars and the panhandlers—that’s all but disappeared. The fence
has an amazing constructive effect on bringing in the people you want and keeping
out the people we don’t want, because if you’re a shoplifter and you see a fence,
you know you are gonna get caught so why bother to shoplift? So they go elsewhere.64

As a showcase for Atlanta’s history, UA’s fence and admission fee allowed
it to choose who would belong to Atlanta’s tradition and who would not.
“Undesirable elements”—homeless people, political radicals, and street
preachers—were being kept out while more middle-class people were coming back. WSB News underscored the purpose of the fence, commenting that“throughout history, men have built barricades to keep people out, but thisfence here at Underground built a year ago has actually served to keep peoplein.”65
Despite its promising beginning, the construction of the fence did not save
UA. MARTA’s construction project, at its most intrusive in the late seventies,
harmed UA’s business, which brought in only 1.2 million visitors in 1978—
barely a fourth of the number of visitors four years earlier66. UA’s decline
might even have been caused by the fence, since the debates over it highlighted the danger inherent in coming downtown. When an Atlanta Constitution staff writer visited UA in 1979, ladies with antebellum garments did not
welcome him as they had ten years before; instead, as he was about to enter,a “drug-addled nut” approached him, introduced himself as “Dr. Clinton,”
and attempted to escort him toward a bar for glass of “Jupiter Juice.” Still,once inside the gate, the writer discovered a familiar place where there was“no cause for fear,” even in “the most desolate alleyways.” Discovering that“the spirit of place resided in the place as well as in its gas lamps, cobbled
lanes and brick archways,” the writer concluded that “Dr. Clinton” was “theexception rather than norm.”67 For middle-class readers in suburbia, however,
the article would add to their concerns, as it seemed to portray UA as little
more than a small fort in a downtown battlefield. The rupture between suburbia and downtown was complete.
About three months after the appearance of the above article, the Atlanta
Journal ran an essay describing UA as “a tomb. Dark, dirty, depressing, anddeserted,” and reporting that nine out of ten tourists would be “disappointed
in what they saw.”68 Stevenson still appeared in local newspapers and televi-

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sion programs working to save UA, but it was only a matter of time before theinevitable, final collapse. By 1979, he acknowledged that suburbanites would
not return to downtown. Even though he was an advocate of the “public
street,” Stevenson recognized that he was not a “public institution” but a“capitalistic person.” To protect his fondue restaurant, he had to give up UA
and move to a “location where locals are willing to come and hotels will sendvisitors by cab.” WSB News interviewed him just before he pulled his restaurant out of UA and asked why he had tried to be a “downtown fighter.” Stevenson explained that it was an “obligation” of “successful people” to givesomething back, and that downtown should be “important to all of us regardless where we live.”69 Obviously, the importance of downtown had faded forthe suburban middle class. By 1981, Dante Stevenson had moved his business to the Lenox Mall area in the upscale Buckhead section of Atlanta. By
then, the gaslights—the symbol of the UA historic district—were turned off
for good.
VI.

CONCLUSION

By building UA, politicians, developers, UAI officials, and private business entrepreneurs like Stevenson attempted to recreate a lively central city
street modeled on the early twentieth century and thereby bring middle-classsuburbanites back to downtown Atlanta. The gas lights, cobblestone streets,
marble facades, classic ice cream parlors, and monkey shows represented efforts to create the ambiance of an inclusive place where hippies, middle-classfamilies, rich and poor, and young and old could all gather together. Many
local papers from other cities looked on and extolled the openness of the festive enclave. However, it was this very inclusiveness that gradually undermined UA’s appeal to middle-class families. The expansion of convention
business demanded nightlife entertainment, which led to the opening of“girlie shows” near UA. When the papers filed in the run-up to constructionof a MARTA station in the Underground area undermined its image as a historical place, the combination decimated UA’s two primary characteristics as
a historic park and family entertainment. A fence around the project waserected to exclude people whose behavior did not fit into middle-class norms
and expectations, but ultimately the fence and gate did little more than symbolize UA’s failure to turn Atlanta’s downtown into a safe and wholesome
place for middle-class families. Indeed, its existence represented a denial of
the urban inclusiveness that UA had once treasured.
Many people lamented UA’s death and one could read this as another story

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of downtown’s “decline,” but documenting the biography of UA requires
neither glorifying the efforts of promoters and planners nor mourning theearly death of downtown Atlanta. As historians Alison Isenberg and Bryant
Simon have recently cautioned, we would do well not to rely on the so-called
declension narrative in chronicling downtown’s history.70 Those who lament
the recent “death” of downtown tend to romanticize the past, assuming that
downtown streets, movie theaters, and department stores, especially in the
pre-war period, constituted urbane, diverse, and democratic space. This perspective overlooks the fact that downtown space, particularly before the
Civil Rights Movement, was mostly segregated; it might have been vibrantand open, but it was only for whites. Seen in this light, UA presents an important case not only because it was one of the first efforts to create a public
space in a post-Jim Crow Atlanta, but because UA promoters and developers
endeavored to recreate a downtown that originally existed during a period of
rigid white rule. Of course, this does not mean that UA attempted to preserve
racial segregation; after all, Mayor Maynard Jackson was an African American who worked diligently to revive UA and restaurants and bars in the festive place cherished black entertainers and welcomed black customers.
Manufacturing segregation in this context refers primarily to the exclusion of
those who engaged in “inappropriate” behavior, including “go-go girls” andstreet preachers. Particularly, these promoters were compelled to exclude the“winos” and “panhandlers,” since they disturbed the visitors from the suburbs, upon whose satisfaction downtown’s survival depended.
Nonetheless, race remained important to the brief life of UA, for the primary target of physical exclusion was homeless people and one should not
overlook the large numbers of African Americans among the homeless population of Atlanta. UA was destined to collapse, because it pretended to beopen to any race and culture despite the fact that it targeted mainly middleclass folks. When the central city was being occupied increasingly with thepoor and racial minorities, it was just impossible. They sought their final curein gates and fences, but the remedy did not work; ironically, people saw it asevidence that UA (and downtown) itself had become an “inappropriate”
space, strengthening their determination to stay away from downtown. Erecting gates and fences not only turned homelessness and blackness into proofof urban decay; the tactic also convinced suburbanites to shut the door on UA
and, in so doing, prevented them from witnessing and learning the true character and origins of urban crisis.71 In short, UA was no longer alive as a public space; it could not be a “site of interaction, encounter and the support of
strangers.”72

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ICHIRO MIYATANOTES
1“Underground Atlanta: A Rollicking Place,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, undated, Forward
Atlanta Newspaper Clippings, Jan. 1970, folder 2, box 4, Bell and Stanton Papers, MSS 596,
Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
2
David Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1967−1980(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 156.
3
See Charles Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta: The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams(New York: Verso, 1996), 166−67; Goldfield, Cotton Field, 156; Harvey Newman, Southern
Hospitality: Tourism and the Growth of Atlanta (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
1999), 177−78; Harold H. Martin, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of its People and Events,
vol. III (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 460−61, 553−60; Frederick Allen,
Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946−1996 (Atlanta: Longstreet Press,
1996), 167−68, 198; Doug Monroe, “City Observed: What’s Up with Underground?” Atlanta
Magazine (December 2006), http://www.atlantamagazine.com/article.php?id=310 (accessed
July 23, 2007).
4
As for the relationship between suburbanization and urban decline, see Kenneth Jackson,
Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1985); Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005); Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority:
Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006);
Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2003).
5
See Robert D. Bullard, “Introduction: Anatomy of Sprawl,” in Robert Bullard, Glenn S.
Johnson, and Angel O. Torres, Sprawl City: Race, Politics, and Planning in Atlanta (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000), 8−9.
6Ibid., 11.
7
For further reading on historic preservation and urban renewal, see Michael Sorkin, ed.,Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1992); Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and thePeople Who Made It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
8
Isenberg, Downtown America, 2, 6−7. Isenberg’s analysis on the role of “nostalgia” indowntown redevelopment was also insightful in making this perspective. See, ibid.,255−311.
9
Don Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (NewYork: Guilford Press, 2003), 3−4.
10
Underground Atlanta, Inc., “Underground Atlanta: The Historic City beneath the Streets,”
pamphlet, no date, Vertical file “Underground Atlanta,” Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia.
11
See Garrett, Atlanta and Environs, vol. 2, 795−98; “Atlanta’s Underworld: History in
Viaduct’s Dust,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution [hereafter AJC], 7 August 1960; Philip
Hoffman, “Creating Underground Atlanta, 1918−1932,” Atlanta Historical Bulletin 13, no. 3(September 1968): 55−66.
12“Wall Street Revival,” Atlanta Constitution [hereafter, AC], 24 December 1967; Editorial,
Atlanta Journal [hereafter AJ], 26 December 1967; “City’s Trashiest Spot May Be City’s
Classiest,” Task Force Report, 15 January 1968, 6; “Gay ‘90s to Glitter Again in Atlanta’s‘Underground,’” AJ, 11 April 1969.
13
From Franklin Garrett to Steven Fuller, Jr., 2 January 1969, file “Underground Atlanta,”
Georgia Historical Commission Administration Papers, RG/SG/Series 061-01-001, 10, RCB20279, The Georgia Archives, Morrow, Georgia.

MANUFACTURING SEGREGATION
14255“Underground Atlanta to Live Again,” Cobb County Times, 2 March 1969.
Joseph. S. Perrin to Merry G. Jewett, 7 March1968, file “Underground Atlanta,” Georgia
Historical Commission Administration Papers, RG/SG/Series 061-01-001, 10, RCB-20279,
The Georgia Archives, Morrow, Georgia.
16
Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta, 166; Harvey, Southern Hospitality, 177; Martin, Atlanta
and Environs, 460−61, 553−55.
17
The brief biography appeared in the Atlanta Phoenix, 1 no.1 (22 January 1970).
18“Underground Project ‘Gold Mine,’” AJC, 11 February 1968.
19“Underground City to Start Tuesday,” AJ, 25 November 1968; “Subsurface Project Begun
in Underground Atlanta,” AJ, 27 November 1968; Underground Atlanta Inc., “Underground
Atlanta: The Historic City Beneath the Street,” pamphlet, undated [1969], vertical file “Underground Atlanta,” Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Library,
Athens, Georgia.
20
From Franklin Garrett to Sam Massell, Jr., 19 May 1968, file “Underground Atlanta,”
Georgia Historical Commission Administration Papers, RG/SG/Series 06-01-001, 10, RCB20279, The Georgia Archives, Morrow Georgia; City of Atlanta, Civic Design Commission,“Resolution,” 1966, Atlanta Urban Design Commission file, quoted in Newman, Southern
Hospitality, 177.
21
Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta, 166.
22
For instance, see UAI’s advertisement in tourist guides like Around Atlanta: Atlanta’s
Visitor Guide, or UAI’s pamphlets “The Historic City beneath the Street,” vertical file “Underground Atlanta,” Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia. Underground Atlanta’s colorful flyers and photos are available at
http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/downtown/undergound.htm (accessed August 25, 2007).
23“1900 Alive in Atlanta: Underground Area Opens,” AC, 9 April 1969; “Gay ‘90s to Glitter
Again in Atlanta’s Underground,” AC, 10 April 1969; “Families Like Underground,” AC, 21
May 1971.
24
See Atlanta Phoenix; “Marthasville Era Recalled,” Daily News (Athens, Ga.), 29 May
1969.
25
Susan Davis, Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 162.
26
“Sub-City Atlanta Opens Soon,” AJ, 9 November 1969.
27“Underground City Project to Begin,” AJ, 27 September 1968; “A Resurrection in Underground,” AC, 2 April 1969. As for the rise and fall of Gaslight Square and Ghirardelli Square,
see Isenberg, Downtown America, 272−97.
28
Memphis Commercial Appeal, 25 October 1970, folder 2, box 4, Bell and Stanton Papers,
MSS 596, Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
29
Cleveland Plain Dealer, undated (1969), folder 2, box 4, Bell and Stanton Papers, MSS
596, Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
30
Robert K. Gardner, Gardner’s Guide to Atlanta (Atlanta: Collegiate Visitors Guides,
1973), 205.
31
“Antebellum Belly Dancers for Atlanta,” AC, 16 May 1972.
32
Harold Martin, Atlanta and Environs vol. 3, 559.
33
“The Presence of the Past” Atlanta Magazine 52 (July 1970): 52.
34“Underground is Surfacing,” AJC, 9 July 1972; “Travel Award Goes to Attraction Here,”
AJC, 12 November 1972.
35“What’s Doing in Atlanta,” New York Times, 2 December 1973.
36“Jackson Declares War on Underground Dancers,” AJ, 17 April 1972.
37“Girls Dance in Underground,” AC, 14 April 1972; “Who Needs Dancing Girls?,” AC, 15
April 1972.
15

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ICHIRO MIYATA

38“The Go-Go Girls Must Go,” AC, 18 April 1972; “Negotiators Get Go-Go Girls Issue,”
AJ, 18 April 1972.
39“Dancers Get Go-Go at City Nightspot,” AJ, 27 April 1972.
40
Board of Aldermen, May 15, Read and Adopted, Minutes and Board of Aldermen, Cityof Atlanta, no. 12, Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Jackson soon came up with a newzoning ordinance to force businesses in UA to “keep with the cultural and historic associationof the place or district” and “iron out… the kinks.” However, the ordinance could not getenough supporters. “Antebellum Belly Dancers for Atlanta?” AC, 4 January 1977.
41“Jackson Declares War on Underground Dancers.”
42“A Proposal for Underground,” AJ, 4 November 1974.
43
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, “News from MARTA,” 7 February 1972,
folder 1, box 57, Mule to MARTA Papers, MSS 619, Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
44
The Urban Mass Transportation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit System Project GA-03-0008, Final Environmental Statement,
13 March 1972, folder 3, box 63, Mule to MARTA Papers, MSS 619, Atlanta History Center,
Atlanta, Georgia.
45“Underground is Surfacing.”
46“Underground Asks City ‘Take Over,’” AJ, 11 October1974.
47“15 Nightspots in Underground Fall to MARTA,” AC, 8 October 1974.
48“Underground Asks City ‘Take Over’”; “Underground Park Weighed by Atlanta,” AJ, 11
February 1975; “Fences for Underground Atlanta?” AC, 12 February 1975.
49
City Council, 3 March 1975, Read and Referred, 535, City Range A, A-5, City Council
Minutes and Indexes, vol. 1, January 7, 1974–August 18, 1975, minutes and index, Atlanta
History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
50“Fences for Underground Atlanta?” AC, 12 February 1975.
51“Rid Underground of Honky Tonks, City Panel Asks,” AC, 14 March 1975.
52“Fences for Underground Atlanta”; “Fence Underground?” AC, 26 February 1975; “Fencing Fee May Make Underground ‘Respectable,’” AJ, 3 March 1975.
53
See “Fencing Project Stalled,” AJ, 17 May 1976; “Underground Efforts,” AJ, 18 May
1976; “Underground Fence Bids Still Too High,” AC, 27 May 1976; “Still No Fence at Underground,” AC, 17 April 1977; “Underground Getting Fenced in,” AJ, 13 May 1977.
54“Can Underground Stage a Comeback?” AC, 2 August 1977; Atlanta City Directory,
1978−1979; “Merchants in Underground Abandoned by Parent Firm,” AJ, 4 June 1977.
55“Underground Atlanta,” AC, 7 June 1977.
56“Merchants in Underground Abandoned by Parent Firm.”
57“Underground Atlanta.”
58
The turnstile enabled UAMA to earn $12,000 in the first month, which was more thanenough to provide maintenance and security service for the month. AJ, 15 July1977.
59
Editorial, AJ, 4 August 1977.
60
Augusta Chronicle Herald, 16 October 1977.
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid; “Can Underground Stage a Comeback?” AC, 2 August 1977.
63“So Much for Obituaries—Underground is Rallying,” AJ, 31 August 1978.
64
WSB News, 18 September 1978, rec. no. 28782, reel 2393, time in 5:08, WSB News Film
Archive, the Instructional Resources Center, University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia.
65
Ibid.
66
See “Sherman’s Second March,” AJ, 2 June 1976; “MARTA demolition in Underground
Atlanta Criticized,” AJ, 17 November 1976; “Underground Protests MARTA Street Closing,”
AC, 10 January 1978; “MARTA vs. Underground,” AJ, 18 January 1978.

MANUFACTURING SEGREGATION
67

257

Steve Daugherty, “Up and Down in Underground,” AC, 16 January 1979.
Ron Hudspeth, “Sinking Underground Atlanta 6 Feet Under,” AC, 21 April 1979.
69
WSB News, no date, rec. no. 38272, reel 0050, time in 37:50, WSB News Film Archive,
The Instructional Resources Center, University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia.
70
See Bryant Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Isenberg, Downtown America; Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2004), 3−4.
71
The City of Atlanta sponsorship enabled Underground Atlanta to be resurrected once
again in 1989. Managed by the Rouse Corporation, the $142 million project again has engaged
in a new effort at revitalizing Atlanta’s downtown, but, as with its predecessor, the new Underground Atlanta is still struggling to attract middle-class visitors from the metropolitan Atlanta
area.
72
Mitchell, The Right to the City, 3−4.
68